The Dailies

In the mid 1970s, architect Harry Seidler designed a space for the historic Commercial Travellers’ Association in Sydney, Australia. In collaboration with Pier Luigi Nervi, he created a circular building that sprouts up from the street like a radiating flower.\n\nFor the 25th Kaldor Public Art Project, Thomas Demand’s series The Dailies occupies an entire floor of Seidler’s structure. The floor of sixteen bedrooms, which house The Dailies, extend off a circular corridor creating a labyrinthine effect. Demand’s images sit above the beds in each room, the transient scenes capturing everyday moments and objects, suspended in time like the environment around them.\n\nWorking within the parameters of his now well-known technique, Demand created carefully formed paper and card sculptures, photographed and then destroyed them. His creations are based on things he saw and photographs he took while travelling and walking the street. Demand describes the series as like Haiku poetry, simple fragments strung together to inspire reflection.\n\nThe Dailies includes contributions by designer Miuccia Prada and US author Louis Begley.\n\nThe book, a work of art in itself, expands to a 16-pointed star, its concertina pages unfurling to echo the shape of the CTA building.