Atopolis

Mons ECC 2015

Atopolis is the title of a contemporary art exhibition, organised by Wiels in collaboration with Mons 2015 – European Capital of Culture. It presented a group of artists interested in phenomena of circulation, diaspora and cultural dislocation.

The garden of the building in which the exhibition took place was planned as a courtyard of a prospective office building. Awaiting its appointed use the building was temporarily transformed into an exhibition space for contemporary art.

Due to the garden’s formal and restricted design, the curators invited Constructlab to intervene and further activate it in order to better fit its cultural surroundings and become a more lively place. With this objective in mind, constructlab designed and constructed various furniture pieces and objects inviting visitors to enter the grass areas and conquer the potential of the garden. On one side hung a movable wall bench seat, traversing the greenery a lawn crossing bridge could be spotted, and further along root-like swing benches surrounded one of the garden’s trees, creating a shaded meeting point in the middle of the path towards the main entrance.