Mai-Thu Perret – In the sandalwood forest there are no ordinary trees (2015)

In the courtyard of the Montbrillant post office building, 14 eyeballs emerge from a long, white-plastered, windowless wall of 550 square metres. The eyes look straight ahead at the offices opposite on the sixth floor. Artist Mai-Thu Perret produced them from ceramic, each iris with an individual glaze, shape, and colour. Erected in 1984, the sprawling building behind the Cornavin train station was renovated in 2012 when the Swiss Post reorganized its mail distribution system, freeing up ample office space. Since then, the postal service has shared the building with the local employment office, the social security office, and the Hospice général. This diverse user base had to be considered when developing the concept for the art-in-architecture project.

In response to complaints by the building’s users about the disorienting “blind wall” in the inner courtyard, that same wall was designated for an artistic intervention in the art-in-architecture competition. The “blindness” of the wall inspired Perret to her project with the “seeing” eyes. For the artist, the eyes are like the lucky charms worn in various cultures in the form of ceramic amulets: they are intended to bring luck and protection to all those who frequent the area. Mai-Thu Perret aimed to counter the functional architecture with an artwork that was organic, playful, surrealistic, and handcrafted.