“Infinite matter”: transforming plastic, nourishing reflection
The exhibition is presented until May 28 at the Brouillon café-bar located on the Plaza Saint-Hubert.
Nothing is lost, everything is created and transformed. This could be the motto of the Ascètes studio which is currently presenting, in collaboration with the creative company TUX Karma, the exhibition Infinite Matter at the Brouillon café-bar.
This “infinite” material, which we know is so slow to decompose and yet which is produced in phenomenal quantities, is obviously plastic. Rather than seeing it as waste destined to end up in the dump, the collective of artists has chosen to consider plastic simply for what it is, a material, and to explore its creative possibilities.
The exhibition, located in the back room of the cozy café-refreshment bar Brouillon, on the Plaza Saint-Hubert, thus presents the collective's approach through a manifesto in the form of a poster and a short video. But above all, there are several creations from the Ascètes studio: three tables, each lit by a light and surrounded by two seats, make up three paintings, like the three ages of life.
With its own style, each painting – whose parts are made entirely of recycled plastic – gives an overview of the textures and shapes that this material can offer. In the first, we find rounded, cylindrical shapes and a white plastic reminiscent of stone or terrazzo. While the second painting, all in straight lines, features a chess table and orange armchairs (the color of the detergent bottles of a certain brand of washing powder), the third, entirely black, lets more tangled shapes express themselves. organic.
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A creative laboratory
Rather than being moralistic or presenting its works as a miracle solution to the problem of plastic waste, the collective makes proposals, explores, experiments.
“We do not claim to have found a solution, but we rather see it as a starting point, the starting point of a reflection”, explains Olivier Bonnard, multidisciplinary artist and co-founder of the studio Ascètes.
The approach is even playful and the art is not sacralized since we are invited to touch the works, to sit around the tables. To allow visitors to better understand the plastic transformation process as a whole, one of the machines manufactured by the studio is also on display.
Used to extrude plastic, this funny machine is itself made of recycled materials (notably an old electric treadmill), a creation by artist Olivier Heaps-Drolet. “Our workshop is really a laboratory, explains the latter. In the industry, plastics are thought to have certain characteristics and we try to take advantage of them by transforming them.”
Because yes, to reuse plastic, here the artists do everything A to Z, from harvesting the containers, to shredding them into tiny bits of plastic which will then be melted down and reworked.
Material to enjoy
To complete the experience, or to echo it, the chef and mixologist of Le Brouillon, Céline Diallo and Kévin Long, have created a menu and a cocktail specially for the occasion, also inspired by the theme of matter. This unexpected gastronomic component is part of TUX Karma's desire to “break down the walls between creative communities”, as Sarah Patier, lead development and operations within the creative company, points out.
The perfectly balanced cocktail of mezcal, cucumber gin and lime is served with a crispy rice tuile on which rest marbles that explode in the mouth and give us a taste of the cocktail. You can then let yourself be tempted by three dishes while playing with textures and flavors. Inspired by the artists' approach, the chef also wanted to give nobility to foods that are less often sublimated.
We thus find an egg cooked at low temperature, presented on a spinach cream and accompanied by fish eggs and mushroom foam, a carrot steak and its celery cream, covered with rice paper chips (our favorite), or a beet sponge cake served with honey ricotta, seasoned with pollen, buckwheat and shizo sprouts.
Offered in addition to the usual menu, the three courses and the cocktail will undoubtedly pique the curiosity of gourmets and make them want to visit the exhibition.
Matière infinite is presented from May 10 to 28, at Brouillon café-buvette, 6580-A rue Saint-Hubert.
