Sensorial Design

OSMOS

Sound and Photoluminescent Table

Design by Maria Chiara Monacelli

“Osmos is not just matter. It is emotion, identity, connection – a sensorial experience that invites reflection on the deep relationship between space, body, and memory.”

Maria Chiara Monacelli

The Work

Osmos—derived from the Greek “impulse, push”—was born to celebrate the natural cycle of life and the intrinsic bond between living beings and the cosmos. It is a hymn to life, to circularity, to shared presence.

Encased in Sensorial material and traversed by a stream of water, the table holds within its core a fallen olive tree, gathered from the Umbrian hills. Osmos is a space to be inhabited, a body that vibrates, emits light, and diffuses sound: a harmonic chamber of emotions, memory, and experience.

Entirely customizable, the piece is a synesthetic organism, uniting matter, light, and resonant sound. It is to be seen, touched, listened to—and felt.

OSMOS

A threshold of light, sound, and life. 
The matter vibrates with you.

Inspiration and Vision

Inspired by the studies of Masaru Emoto, Maria Chiara Monacelli chose to use water in OSMOS as a bearer of vibration, memory, and harmony, merging it with a material capable of absorbing, resonating, and communicating. 

Our bodies are composed of two-thirds water, and as Emoto affirms, the most powerful vibration that ennobles and informs water arises from the resonance between love and gratitude, giving and receiving. Osmos is the living embodiment of this vision: an object that transforms conviviality into relational art, a vessel of resonance between people and the world.

A fallen olive tree becomes the living heart of the work, the body that gives. Its matter fuses with Sensorial material—the table that receives its lifeblood—to generate a multisensory, immersive experience layered with symbolic meaning. The flowing of water, the luminescence reverberating in the dark, the sound vibrating through space, the touch meeting form and essence: every interaction with OSMOS is a passage across the threshold between inside and outside, where spirit and nature finally resonate as one.

The Layers of OSMOS

The Senses as Language

Osmos is an installation that celebrates the cycle of life and the connection between living beings, water, and the cosmos. At its center, a fallen olive tree, fused into a sensory concrete table, becomes a symbol of rebirth, energy, and togetherness. Sounds, lights, and vibrations create a collective experience that unites nature, the body, and memory in an act of shared resonance.

See

The light, a visual breath.

Touch

To be living matter.

Hear

The echo of form.

Feel

Where space meets emotion.

Nature

Nature breathing within the image.

Connection

Beyond the visible, sensing the invisible.

Regeneration

Inhabiting the Cosmos.

My Lullaby is My Home

A performance by Sofia Boarino in collaboration with Maria Chiara Monacelli, presented during the Opendoor event by La Repubblica – Fuorisalone Milano 2025

During the Opendoor event, Osmos became the living heart of an immersive performance that united art, sound, and neuroscience.
Artist Sofia Boarino, known as Loto, conceived the performance My Lullaby is My Home as an exploration of spatial and sonic intimacy. 

Around the sensorial table unfolded a vibrant landscape of vocal memories, archaic sounds, rituals, and fragments of shared identity.

Maria Chiara Monacelli, the creator of Osmos, guided the artistic direction of the performance—melding design and gesture into a single emotional choreography. 

“The truth of our feeling is revealed through sound and matter. A sonorous material that moves the soul and the body. To honor the human being and our emotions—the keys to our inner world.” — Sofia Boarino (Loto)

Watch the interview