The Artist Moved In First

When we began conversations with Salma Benali about a commission for Safra, the building was still unfinished. Concrete floors, temporary lighting, no furniture anywhere. We offered to wait until the residence was closer to completion before she came to see it. She said no.

Benali spent three weeks in the building before she made a single mark. She slept in one of the upper residences, used the courtyard in the mornings, and spent a lot of time in the entrance corridor where the commission now lives. She was interested in how sound moved through the unfinished space, how the light entered from the eastern facade at different times of day, and what it felt like to move between the outdoor and indoor areas when nothing was softening the transition yet.

The work she eventually made is a direct result of that time. It is a large scale piece in pigmented tadelakt and raw copper that runs the full length of the entrance wall. It responds to the light in the corridor in a way that would have been impossible to design from a studio. The copper oxidises slowly over time, which means the piece is still changing. Residents who have lived at Safra for two years are looking at something different from what new arrivals see.

We commission art this way because we think the alternative produces decoration. A work chosen from a catalogue to complement an interior colour scheme is furniture by another name. What Benali made at Safra belongs to that building in a way that could not be replicated anywhere else, and that specificity is the point.

Every ROCA residence holds a permanent commission made this way. The artists we work with are given time and access before they are given a brief. What they produce from that is always more interesting than anything we could have asked for directly.