Les thermes

Conception : Belinda Annaloro, Antoine Defoort, Julien Fournet, Halory Goerger, Sébastien Vial

Les thermes are a swimming pool made out of wood, filled with 22 000 black plastic balls. On each ball, a different inscription is engraved (85 different sentences). The audience in has to dive in to read the inscriptions, and has to swim to get a good idea of the content. Mostly, those sentences come from stoician philosophy. Depending on the context, a philosopher or an artist is usually invited to give a short lecture on stoicism, to which the audience attends in the pool. Somewhere in between a conceptual sauna and a ball pool for grown-ups.

This project was initiated in the broader context of France Distraction, a series of installations which feel like you came to celebrate the boss’s birthday in an company manufacturing experimental team-building devices, and everybody decided to have fun with the stock (not your average party).