For the first of these, the Vent des Forêts art centre has invited Andrés Baron, born in 1987 in Bogotá (Colombia), to exhibit at La Grande Place, Musée du Cristal Saint-Louis. A graduate of the École Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs de Paris (France), Andrés Baron immersed himself in the life of the crystalworks, meeting with its craftspeople and exploring its archives, before creating a new ensemble of visual and sound works that dialogue with the museum’s collections. With a string of onomatopoeia as its title – “Cling Cling Boum” – this solo exhibition offers multiple tactile and sensitive interactions resulting from the manipulation of bodies, sounds and objects by the artist. His filmed performances, photographs and sound work together constitute a dreamlike language infused with the precise gestures and unique properties associated with crystal.

When it came time for artist Lionel Sabatté (b. Toulouse, 1975) to immerse himself in the world of Saint-Louis crystalware, at the invitation of the Vent des Forêts art centre, the incessant activity of the site’s craftspeople brought the metaphor of the bee and the beehive to mind. Starting from this initial impression, he created a new artistic itinerary for La Grande Place. The works that make up this ensemble draw on nature, in particular plants and bees, as well as minerals, which are essential to the art of crystalware. With this exhibition, simply entitled “La Ruche”, Lionel Sabatté extends his investigation into the living world and material transformations. Combining elements – almost residues – found in nature, he fashions a hybrid bestiary that is at once unsettling and poetic. Within La Grande Place, alongside the finest and most delicate pieces of crystalware, he deepens his reflection on the place of humans in an ever more fragile world.