Roma Roma Roma: Denis Savary

Activation of the work Roma Roma Roma by Denis Savary

Since 2011, CDH-Culture has invited an artist to present a work in collaboration with the Rolex Learning Center. This year, Denis Savary will present his project Roma, Roma, Roma, the result of a commission by the city of Geneva in 2016.

During this period, Denis Savary was visiting Cinecittà, leading him to make a connection between the cinema setting, the architecture of Geneva’s Old Town - a kind of urban theatre - and the idea of hot-air balloons evoking the film Ghostbusters (1984), in which the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man appears in a recreated street of New York City.

The cinematic setting and recollections of the giant model of Geneva City made at the end of 19th century by the architect Auguste Magnin were mixed to create a realistic place, where fairy apparitions can pop up. Similarly, the architectural context of the Rolex Learning Center and its patios are an ideal place for the launch of several of these guided balloons. This collection of ephemeral sculptures, both nocturnal and luminous, questions scale and dimensions, and brings a verticality to the horizontal building to the point where you could nearly see wings come out of it.

From October 2023 until September 2024, Roma, Roma, Roma will enliven the campus sky on a number of occasions. In 2024, a film presenting the different presentations will be produced and projected on campus.

Denis Savary is an artist living in Geneva. He studied at ECAL, where he currently teaches. He has presented his works, among other things, at Jeu de Paume and Palais de Tokyo in Paris, MAMCO in Geneva, the Kunsthalle Bern, the Swiss Institute in New York, Printemps de septembre in Toulouse, and the Villa Medicis in Rome. His work is inspired by pop culture, cartoons and art history. Denis Savary creates dreamlike and organic objects and pictures, which are very often hybrids between the human, the machine and the animal. It is there that imagination builds its realm.

Free access

Venue: Rolex Learning Center, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland

For further information, please visit the website:

https://memento.epfl.ch/event/activation-of-the-work-roma-roma-roma-by-denis-sav/