Clinamen

Artwork: Céleste Boursier-Mougenot, Clinamen, Bourse de Commerce, Paris, 2025

French artist Céleste Boursier-Mougenot’s meditative installation Clinamen is currently showing at Bourse de Commerce in Paris until September. I was fortunate enough to see this installation in a previous iteration, and was mesmerised by the pool of water with the porcelain bowls moving to a slight current, producing spontaneous melodic sounds. Part of Boursier-Mougenot’s intention with Clinamen is to allow the viewer a space to slow down, to simply listen and watch the bowls as they gently collide. The Bourse de Commerce version of Clinamen was also inspired by the architectural space designed by Tadeo Ando, with the basin double its usual size, reflecting the sky above visible in the Rotunda’s dome. As Boursier-Mougenot explains: “My approach is largely based on taking into account the places and spaces where I am invited to present my work. I see the architecture of each new exhibition venue as a matrix into which the technical and aesthetic principles of the installation are cast, as if into a mould, resulting in a new version in situ.”