The exhibition “Aléas. Pratiques de l’adaptation” highlights creative and production approaches that engage with the unexpected. Curators Baptiste Meyniel and Nicolas Verschaeve invite us to discover a plurality of active observations of the world and reveal designers' ability to continually adapt to the contexts in which they are involved. While the notion of hazards implies the idea of uncertainty linked to chance, here it is understood as a set of parameters that are skilfully apprehended.
Caught up in a series of hazards, the objects presented here emerge from a form of letting go, which at first glance seems to contradict academic design methods. It is about the ability of creators to deviate from established plans, to integrate a set of active forces into their work, to ‘compromise’ rather than impose dogmas.
Beyond the objects themselves, what is revealed above all are attitudes, almost a philosophy, conducive to conversing with a world in constant transformation.
During the exhibition, the Grand-Hornu will see piles of coal pass through its walls, a material and energy source that constituted one of the major flows during the period of activity of the Boussu mines. An invitation to wander, the installation will reveal both the forces that shaped a collection of productions, objects and artefacts, and the phenomena that they make visible. These forces are of various kinds, including those that govern the laws of the cosmos, such as gravity, the magnetic field and the sun's course; laws intrinsic to materials and their properties; and the availability of pre-existing elements in the designers' environment, forcing them – in a world of finite resources – to make do with what is already there.
