Given the tremendous challenge facing us — namely preserving the habitability of the earth for future generations — how do creators, artists and designers, engage in thinking and in practices that reinvent our ways of existing in today’s world? In conversation with science, crafts, technologies, various forms of intelligence — manual, collective, animal, bacterial, artificial — many have searched extensively, and found solutions. However, these solutions have rarely been viewed, listened to, shared or proposed on a larger industrial, planetary and urgent scale, which the ecological crisis we are experiencing calls for.

Marking the 10th anniversary of the Fondation Thalie, this showcase originates and results from four years of its Créateurs Urgence Climat programme. Within the framework of an exhibition and an events programme, it brings together creators and experts from different disciplines, sharing and putting into perspective and into action this transformative research.

On this occasion, in dialogue with works from its collection, the Fondation opens itself to being an experimental and prospective system at the crossroads of art, design and ecology. Each exhibition space is both intimate and conducive to long timelines and events. Each is organised around a specific theme and a series of questions, such as: in the context of the climate crisis, what solutions can creators offer? How, within the means of art and design, can we make scientific research visible? How can we perpetuate the beauty of knowledge and traditions, the depth of gestures and techniques, in this era of technological hyperconnectivity?

The “initiatory” journey is composed of works from the collection, invitations and new commissions by artists and designers, as well as video installations opening up new prospective narratives. The scenography, which implements biosourced materials and ecological construction techniques, was designed by the Brussels studio Bento Architecture. Through responsible and symbolic gestures, it unites different answers to urgent questions — the basis of which the Fondation Thalie has engaged in for a decade, and will continue to actively build on for years to come.

Curators : Nathalie Guiot et Yann Chateigné Tytelman
Ecoscenography designed by Bento Architecture, Brussels

With Aléa (Miriam Josi & Stella Lee Prowse), Helene Appel, Michel Blazy, Cathryn Boch, Paloma Bosquê, emmanuel boos, Thierry Boutemy, Claudia Comte, Edith Dekyndt, Latifa Echakhch, Raphaël Emine, Adélaïde Feriot, Sidival Fila, Marie-Ange Guilleminot, Marlene Huissoud, Tony Jouanneau / Atelier Sumbiosis, Jitish Kallat, Ali Kazma, Takehito Koganezawa, Isa Melsheimer, Otobong Nkanga, Junko Oki, Solange Pessoa, Benoît Platéus, Hans Reichel, Tomás Saraceno, Noémie Sauve, Rachel Selekman, Buhlebezwe Siwani, Jenna Sutela, Alina Szapocznikow, Moffat Takadiwa, Philippe Terrier-Hermann, Samuel Tomatis, Natsuko Uchino, Maarten Vanden Eynde.

The exhibition is open until October 26, 2024. A fee is applied to this archiweek partner activity but free on Saturday October 5.