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3. At the Bourse de Commerce in Paris, an Immersive Work of Sound and Silence

The Bourse de Commerce – Pinault Collection is currently hosting, through September 21, Clinamen, a grand and immersive installation by Céleste Boursier-Mougenot. Blending water, porcelain, and sound waves, it transforms the museum's Rotunda into a space of sensory contemplation.

Clinamen is a dreamlike, immersive and multisensory experience by Céleste Boursier-Mougenot, presented in the Rotunda of the Bourse de Commerce – Pinault Collection. Originally built in the 18^th century as a grain exchange, the building – now a contemporary art museum – becomes a living vessel for this ever-evolving installation.

This piece turns the Rotunda into a place of both sonic and visual meditation.
Boursier-Mougenot represented France at the 56^th Venice Biennale in 2015. From 1985 to 1994, he was a composer for the Side One - Posthume Théâtre company, led by stage director Pascal Rambert. He then turned to the creation of sound installations, seeking to give music its own independent, spatial form. Using everyday objects and situations as starting points, he builds systems that transform them into real-time musical scores – what he calls “living” sounds.

Striking in scale yet delicate in execution, Clinamen features a circular basin 18 meters in diameter, filled with 75 tons of softly blue-tinted water. Dozens of white porcelain bowls float across its surface. Gently propelled by hidden pumps, the bowls drift and collide, producing an ephemeral, melodic chime – like a magical carillon or the clinking of rigging against masts.

This aquatic ballet, shaped by the whims of light and chance, echoes Monet’s Water Lilies or the sonic experiments of Björk. Presented in Paris for the first time, the installation breathes a vibrant, multi-sensory life into the concrete space designed by architect Tadao Andō. It becomes a kind of cosmic experience – ephemeral and immediate – one that draws the eye and enchants the ear.

In this hypnotic, dreamlike world, whether holding a book or simply embracing the silence, visitors find themselves before something elemental: water as salvation, as purification, as rebirth. It’s an oasis in the heart of Paris – far from the noise of the streets and the roar of traffic – offering a moment of solitude and reverie. Here, chaos dissolves into a waking dream, anchored by the enveloping blue, like a source of life and renewal.

Within this quiet fluidity, we reconnect with an inner world, something intrinsic. We step away from the noise of today’s digital frenzy and return to our thoughts – humbly, without glitter or distraction. May these living installations bring us back to what truly matters: to art, to poetry, to our shared humanity.