URNA, a profound and poetic exhibition designed to reframe how societies might engage with death, memory and material continuity. Commissioned by Arts Council Malta and featured at the Design Biennale London as well as Constellations from the Quarry, the project imagines an alternative to conventional funerary practices, using design as a catalyst for cultural reflection.
Conceived by a multinational team of architects, designers, curators and creative directors including Andrew Borg Wirth, Anthony Bonnici and Tanil Raif, URNA centred around spherical modules crafted from reconstituted Maltese limestone, a material deeply tied to the island’s heritage. Each sphere was designed to house cremated remains, acting as a collective urn, symbolic of shared human presence and cosmic connection. URNA integrates human remains with discarded quarry stone to form a new geological layer where past and present converge. Sedimentary rock already composed of millions of years of compressed organic life becomes the vessel for a renewed cycle, as human ashes are absorbed into stone and transformed into gently evolving spherical monuments.
Rather than presenting a static object, the installation engages with ritual and landscape as a cohesive design system. It challenges the status quo of burial and memorialisation by proposing a communal field of remembrance, where matter returns to place in a regenerative cycle.
Rooted in both sustainability and cultural context, URNA drew international acclaim at the Biennale, winning the Medal for Overall Contribution, a recognition of its bold fusion of architectural thinking, material intelligence and socio-cultural interrogation.
