At The High Museum in Atlanta, the Chilean creative studio gt2P presents Los Porfiados (The Stubborns), an exhibition inspired by the classic roly-poly wobbling toy known in Chile as “mono porfiado.” This installation features a landscape of fourteen inflatable, limber sculptures, some reaching heights of up to seventeen feet, and encourages visitors to engage with their pliable surfaces.
As participants interact with the sculptures, they animate the installation, transforming the museum’s Carroll Slater Sifly Piazza through collective movement. This exploration emphasizes the themes of collaboration and the construction of public space. When activated, the sculptures serve as a living metaphor for resilience—not as rigidity, but as adaptability; a capacity to move with others, to be displaced, and to return to balance. Each sculpture is responsive to individual actions while contributing to a larger whole that unfolds through accumulated gestures. In this manner, the installation illustrates how public space is not only designed but also enacted and built through presence, interaction, and shared experience.
