Gravity always wins in battle and architecture. When the Boxer at Rest, a rare ancient bronze, was excavated on the south side of the Quirinal Hill in Rome in 1885, it seemed “as if he was awakening again after a long pause in the fighting.” Seated and heavy, he still awaits his next round. In contrast, the Palazzetto dello Sport, built out of prefabricated parts by Pier Luigi Nervi for the 1960 Olympic Games, seems to defy gravity. These two icons of Rome were brought together in the imagination through architecture, poetry, and music tracks: surrounded by a palazzettino woven together out of carbon bars, the boxer from the Quirinal gets a new home in an architectural sound-poetry installation. This book documents the collaboration of the Rome Prize winners Sabine Scho, Sebastian Felix Ernst, and Golden Diskó Ship, and is being produced by the Deutsche Akademie Rom Villa Massimo.

SABINE SCHO (*1970) is an author who photographs. All of her texts inhabit the border zone between photography and image and are exhibited.

SEBASTIAN FELIX ERNST (*1987) is an architect and designer (E R N S T – Office for Architecture). His field of expertise lies at the intersection of architectural, academic, and artistic work.

GOLDEN DISKÓ SHIP (*1982) is Theresa Stroetges, musician and sound artist. Under the name Golden Diskó Ship, she transcends conventional performance practices and the boundaries between genres.

All three artists live in Berlin; during the academic year 2019-20, they were artists-in-residence at the Deutsche Akademie Rom Villa Massimo, and all perform around the world.