Visitors are invited to engage with pliable, colossal
“Los Porfiados (The Stubborns)” this summer
ATLANTA, Feb. 10, 2026 — This June, the High Museum of Art will debut “Los Porfiados (The Stubborns),” a group of monumental, interactive sculptures by Chilean creative studio gt2P in its Carroll Slater Sifly Piazza. On view June 5-Nov. 29, this installation will be the 10th in the High’s multiyear series of inclusive and playful projects to activate its outdoor space.
Inspired by the classic roly-poly wobbling toy, known in Chile as “mono porfiado,” this installation comprises a landscape of 14 inflatable, limber sculptures, some measuring up to 17 feet tall, and invites visitors to interact with their pliable surfaces. These sculptures will come to life through human interaction and play, transforming the Piazza with collective movement that explores collaboration and the construction of public space. When activated, the sculptures become a living metaphor for resilience, understood not as rigidity but as adaptability: the capacity to move with others, to be displaced and to return to balance through shared effort, persistence and care. Each sculpture responds to individual action while also becoming part of a larger whole, created by accumulated gestures.
Comparable in scale to Stonehenge, the forms recall both the earliest stone tools — those that enabled human survival — and the first ritual structures that connected humans on a grander level. Their structure echoes a distant past, when design was born of necessity. But in these sculptures, those ancestral forms are reimagined as soft, rounded bodies, anchored to the ground and balanced with internal weights that allow them to sway gently.
“With the anticipated surge of travelers visiting Atlanta this summer from all over the world, this installation has the potential to bring people together to experience joy and a sense of community through gt2P’s work,” said Rand Suffolk, the High’s director.
“I’m thrilled to be able to share the joyful optimism of gt2P with Atlanta,” said the High’s Curator of Decorative Arts and Design Monica Obniski. “The prototypes of ‘Los Porfiados (The Stubborns)’ debuted at the 2025 Chicago Architecture Biennial, but the fully realized, interactive, inflatable sculptures will have the opportunity to spread out over the Piazza, cheerfully greeting visitors to the museum.”
About the High’s Piazza Activation Initiative
The High’s Piazza activation initiative launched in 2014 to explore how engaging with art and design can extend beyond the museum’s walls. Varied programs, art-making activities and other interactive features enliven these dynamic outdoor installations.
The High commissioned Hector Esrawe and Ignacio Cadena to design the first two installations for the project, “Mi Casa, Your Casa” and “Los Trompos” (“The Spinning Tops”), followed by Jaime Hayon’s “Tiovivo” and “Merry Go Zoo,” Yuri Suzuki’s “Sonic Playground,” SO – IL’s “Murmuration,’’ Bryony Roberts Studio’s “Outside the Lines,” Tanya Aguiñiga’s “HAPPY JOYLANTA” and Studio Sabine Marcelis’ “Panorama.” For each of these installations, the High worked with local arts organizations and its Woodruff Arts Center partners to present live performances and art-making activities themed around the structures. The Piazza projects have so far been enjoyed by more than 1 million visitors.
The High’s Piazza activation initiative is sponsored by a grant from the Lettie Pate Evans Foundation, which is part of the family of foundations that includes the Robert W. Woodruff Foundation. The Lettie Pate Evans Foundation is an independent private foundation that invests primarily in education, arts and culture.
About gt2P
Founded in 2009, gt2P (great things to People) is a Chilean studio merging digital tools with traditional craft through a methodology called “paracrafting.” Led by Guillermo Parada, Tamara Pérez, Sebastián Rozas, and Victor Imperiale, their work spans collectible design, public art and architecture. Projects include Suple: Bounding Form (Design Museum London), Conscious Actions (Design Miami), and two 2024 public installations in California. Their Remolten series explores volcanic materials as a sculptural medium. gt2P has exhibited at Chicago Architecture Biennial (2025), La Biennale di Venezia (2025), the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, and the National Museum of 21st Century Arts (MAXXI), with works held by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the National Gallery of Victoria, and the Denver Art Museum, among others. gt2P is represented by Friedman Benda.
Exhibition Organization and Support
“Los Porfiados (The Stubborns)” is organized by the High Museum of Art, Atlanta, and is sponsored by a grant from the Lettie Pate Evans Foundation. This exhibition is made possible by Premier Exhibition Series Sponsor Delta Air Lines, Inc.; Major Exhibition Series Supporters Sarah and Jim Kennedy; Major Exhibition Series Sponsor Harry Norman Realtors; Benefactor Exhibition Series Supporters Robin and Hilton Howell; Ambassador Exhibition Series Supporters Mrs. Harriet H. Warren; Contributing Exhibition Series Supporters Farideh and Al Azadi, Mary and Neil Johnson, Mr. and Mrs. Baxter Jones, Megan and Garrett Langley, Margot and Danny McCaul, Wade A. Rakes II and Nicholas Miller; Generous support is also provided by Alfred and Adele Davis Exhibition Endowment Fund, Anne Cox Chambers Exhibition Fund, Barbara Stewart Exhibition Fund, Dorothy Smith Hopkins Exhibition Endowment Fund, Eleanor McDonald Storza Exhibition Endowment Fund, The Fay and Barrett Howell Exhibition Fund, Forward Arts Foundation Exhibition Endowment Fund, Helen S. Lanier Endowment Fund, John H. and Wilhelmina D. Harland Exhibition Endowment Fund, Katherine Murphy Riley Special Exhibition Endowment Fund, Margaretta Taylor Exhibition Fund, RJR Nabisco Exhibition Endowment Fund.
About the High Museum of Art
Located in the heart of Atlanta, the High Museum of Art connects with audiences from across the Southeast and around the world through its distinguished collection, dynamic schedule of special exhibitions and engaging community-focused programs. Housed within facilities designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architects Richard Meier and Renzo Piano, the High features a collection of more than 20,000 works of art, including an extensive anthology of 19th- and 20th-century American fine and decorative arts; major holdings of photography and folk and self-taught work, especially that of artists from the American South; burgeoning collections of modern and contemporary art, including paintings, sculpture, new media and design; a growing collection of African art, with work dating from prehistory through the present; and significant holdings of European paintings and works on paper. The High is dedicated to reflecting the diversity of its communities and offering a variety of exhibitions and educational programs that engage visitors with the world of art, the lives of artists and the creative process. For more information about the High, visit www.high.org.
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