Respirer la nuit

Wall installation , 92 hand-carved charcoal pieces,
120 cm (diameter), 2019.

Hope for another life questions the human being as a builder, designer of beauty and utility, but also as a massive destroyer.

Tools, weapons, sculptures, a demolished building, bricks and religious symbols…. Mercedes Klausner seizes coal to sculpt various emblematic elements of past and present civilizations, fragile, ready to burn. Her gesture is political and animist. The artist summons the magical qualities of coal to remind us of our ephemeral nature. – Giovanna Massoni and Amandine David (Curators of the exhibition Au charbon ! For a post-carbon design, CID Grand’Hornu, 2022 )

The clash of civilizations.
How would history be re-interpreted ?

Exhibition montage, At the coalface ! Design in a post-carbon era, CID Grand-Hornu, 2022. ©Jewee Lee
Detail Hope for another life exhibited at At the coalface ! Design in a post-carbon age in the CID Grand-Hornu, 2022. ©Caroline Dethier