THE BIG STEPOVER

The sea of sand turns the desert into a territory without a ground. Constantly shifting, the ground is never a point of reference; like sailors, the inhabitants of the desert rely on the constellations as the only stable geographic guides. Suspended between this shifting ground and the infinite sky, the floating volume of the Dakhla Museum traces the histories and cultures of the peoples of the desert.  In this extreme climate, the hovering volume shelters a shaded public plaza and garden, upon which the museum’s public entities are located.  The path to the museum circles around the temporary exhibition space which floats between the public plaza and the museum proper. Inside the museum, the experience is fabricated like a constellation, a non-linear experience which groups and re-groups objects into multiple narratives.