Stefano Ogliari Badessi

for SWATCH FREERIDE WORLD TOUR 2015

Stefano Ogliari Badessi on the road with the SWATCH FREERIDE WORLD TOUR 2015!

The selfproclaimed world’s leading freeride skiing and snowboarding event finished last weekend on its final destination Verbier, Suisse, after hitting big mountain resorts like Chamonix-Mont-Blanc, the Kitzbühel Alps, the first-ever Tour stop in the Pyrenees (Andorra) and Haines, Alaska — dream destination for freeriders everywhere. You can find winners and final results here.

We would like to focus here on a side event accompanying the sport happening. It all happened in Verbier on March 28 and 29, at the final stop on the Swatch Freeride World Tour 2015 once known as the Verbier Xtreme. A former artist-in-residence at The Swatch Art Peace Hotel in Shanghai, Italian artist Stefano Ogliari Badessi created a sculptural icy work of art that transformed the contestsite into a surreal landscape populated by giant ice balloons.

Stefano Ogliari Badessi (SOB) draws his inspiration from details from the everyday life and the observation of cultures. He uses discarded materials to create sculptures and installations, with a connection to topics such as sustainability and technology.

Space is so I am. Spaces are to fill. The room around me, hall, kitchen, study. My Home. The House I Live in. The spaces that I empty I fill again. The roads with thousand cars, parking, crowded subways. The head, my belly. My mouth is full and my eyes also. The restaurants without booking, bars, taxis. The toilet, all of the toilets in which I plugged my nose because it was filled by someone else. The glass half empty and half-full. Those places that I want to keep in my heart and carry them away, wherever I'm going. Those spaces that are filled with the things that I bought, I created, I crowed myself and also things that I abandoned in the same filled box. The spaces I walk, I touch, I smell, I breathe, I pay, I dance, I smoke and I laugh. Those spaces that I listen with my eyes closed to feel how big they are. Spaces where I remain. Spaces that I need and spaces that I don’t need. Spaces that I've taken with me, spaces that I've created, spaces that protect me from lack of space. My space. Everything is enclosed in a flash of insanity, in a second... in a creative idea that you cannot keep inside. Sometimes you just need to do what you have to do, hear your needs, follow your idea and jump without fear. I followed my idea... I created my own inflatable space with common plastic bags and tape. Almost four cubic meters of space able to be folding in a shoe box… folder up and blow where I want and each time regenerate MY space.