The founding piece
Zero
Zero is where Haphys began: the form itself, and the video in which it was first shown as a work.
Art has spent centuries putting nature on the wall, holding a tree still inside a frame, seen from the one side the painter chose and admired without ever being asked to do anything; Haphys asks. Forms end up buried, out of sight and out of reach of any praise, and whatever grows above them afterwards is the work itself — not a picture of growing but the growing, which was never instructed and cannot be corrected.
What the two give each other is nothing either could supply for itself: the forms go into the ground for the sake of what grows there, giving up being looked at, while what grows becomes everything there is to look at.
Zero is that exchange before either half of it has taken place. In the video the form has not gone into the ground at all: it hangs in the air, held up by a living tree. It turns on all three axes at once and never comes to rest, so that no side of it is the side you were meant to see, just as no execution of the work is like any other.
What comes next
Personal
Personal is the next execution, and the point where Haphys is no longer carried out by us alone.
Zero is the originary work, a single piece. Personal is a body of work in many pieces, each one a work in itself, no two alike.
This is where Haphys is closest to Sol LeWitt: the instruction is the work, and whoever carries it out becomes part of it. A work of this kind is not finished by its authors alone. It exists when someone gives it ground, and the execution is whatever grows there. One holder's ground, weather and patience will not produce what another's does, and neither result is more correct than the other.
What permits the work to be carried out will be set out in its own licence; details of the release will follow.
The form
The form came first
The form was made as a work, not as an answer to a problem. Zero's image and video terms record it as such: an original artistic creation, preceding its application.
Once placed, the forms are no longer seen. Buried, their hollow faces meet the water moving through the soil. What the filings set out is a mechanism, not a result obtained in the ground.
How it works, in full, will follow on a page of its own.
Support
Support us
We are Pietro Brusa and Thomas Brusa, the two artists behind Haphys. On the occasion of its first presentation, from 27 October 2026 to 20 March 2027, you can support us directly. A contribution is voluntary and comes with nothing in return.
Press
Haphys — an artwork whose execution is living vegetation, grown over forms placed in the ground.
Logo, images, video, and a media contact are available on request. Editorial use of the Zero image and video is free — attribution, no misleading alteration, no implied endorsement. How the form is protected is set out in the notes below; the mechanism and its sources will follow on a page of their own.
Notes
Zero is on display and not currently for sale.
The form is an original work by the two artists, protected by copyright. It is also a registered EU design.