Basement
The Flower Requiem Whistling Vases
a cura di Threes Productions
Vica Pacheco
Lavanderia
Via Lamarmora 26, Milan
Fondazione Elpis, in collaboration with Threes, presents the third edition of Basement, a project for sound experimentation at the intercetion between contemporary art, sound and performance featuring a site-specific installation conceived especially for the Foundation’s basement space.
This new edition features Vica Pacheco with an interactive installation titled The Flower Requiem Whistling Vases.
The series of 3D-printed ceramic vases, titled The Flower Requiem Whistling Vases, evokes childhood memories of the large bouquets of fragrant lilies from the artist’s grandmother—whose scent filled the family home—and of the terracotta vases her mother filled with hydrangeas and agapanthus. Vica Pacheco is fascinated by the ephemeral nature of existence.
These acoustic works are inspired by bird calls: the whistles mimic the songs of various species, and their irregular shapes echo the anatomy of different birds.
The Flower Requiem Whistling Vases invites us to reestablish a bond of empathy and care for nature, raising awareness of the need to protect it. The sounds and melodies of the vases that make up the work give form to a sort of requiem that accompanies the flowers toward the end of their lives.
Vica Pacheco participated in the 2025 edition of Una Boccata d'Arte in Bagnara di Romagna (RA), Emilia Romagna.
The Flower Requiem Whistling Vases opens concurrently with Ate non resta che abitare questo desiderio, an exhibition showcasing the outcomes of the residencies held during the first edition of Atelier Elpis.
- Opening
Thursday 13th November 2025, 18.00 - 21.00
The Flower Requiem Whistling Vases is a new installation by Vica Pacheco (Oaxaca, 1993) that intertwines memory, materiality, and sound in a poetic meditation on transience and care. The work draws on the artist’s personal recollections - the scent of lilies in her grandmother’s house, terracotta vases filled with hydrangeas and agapanthus by her mother - transforming them into an acoustic and sculptural ritual. Through this sensory memory, Pacheco enacts a process of transformation: breath becomes voice, and sound traces the life cycle of the flowers, from bloom to inevitable fading.
Each vase, digitally modeled in ceramic, functions as a water flute: a hybrid object, simultaneously container and instrument. As air passes through, it produces a delicate, vibrating whistle that evokes birdsong and renders audible the fleeting vitality of organic matter. The trills and tremolos emerging from these porous forms evoke the fragile beauty and gradual metamorphosis of flowers, composing a requiem that is both an act of listening and of care.
The installation unfolds across three distinct environments, each with its own spatial and sonic identity.
In the first room, a single vase positioned at the center is animated by compressed air, transforming silence into a vital breath.
In the second, two vases face each other in a suspended dialogue, where the interplay of anticipation and resonance creates perceptual tension.
In the third, a constellation of vases scattered throughout the space forms a choral landscape: their voices, recorded and diffused in multichannel, expand into an immersive environment where intimate breath becomes collective attention.
With The Flower Requiem Whistling Vases, Pacheco creates a sensitive ecosystem in which air, water, and clay converge in a fragile yet persistent choreography of life and dissolution. Her whistling vases become breathing bodies, instruments of empathy connecting the human, vegetal, and more than human, inviting reflection on listening as an act of care and sound as a memory in perpetual transformation.
The vases are complemented by botanical compositions realized in collaboration with Clinica Botanica, a Milan based studio integrating design, botany, and sustainable practices, weaving sculptural and vegetal sensibilities into a gesture of ecological awareness.