Souffle de Fer — L’art comme respiration retrouvée — Bastille Design Center — Exhibition — Slash Paris

Finishes tomorrow: April 17 → 19, 2026

A former 19th-century hardware store is becoming the setting for a dialogue between industrial memory and contemporary creation.

From April 17 to 19, 2026, the Bastille Design Center will host Souffle de Fer — L’art comme respiration retrouvée, a group exhibition conceived by the painter and curator Anna Sokolov for the Fondation Présent. For three days, artists and visitors will occupy the former industrial building in Paris’s 11th arrondissement, exploring a simple premise: what if architecture, too, could breathe?

Built in 1867, the site originally housed the Vallerant hardware store. For nearly 150 years, tools, nails and metal goods were stored there before being distributed across Paris. Supplies arrived by barge via the Canal Saint-Martin and were unloaded onto small rail carts, traces of which remain visible today.

The building has since been converted into a 600-square-meter event space while preserving many elements of its industrial past, including heavy wooden floors, a metal frame, large oak shelving units and a glass roof that fills the interior with natural light. These features position the Bastille Design Center as a space where historical function and contemporary use intersect.

The exhibition extends that dialogue by treating the building not as a backdrop but as an active environment. The curators frame the space as a living organism shaped by airflow and vertical movement. Works are installed accordingly: suspended canvases respond to air currents, lightweight sculptures in rattan or metal shift subtly in space, and installations interact with filtered light from the floors and skylight.

The exhibition unfolds across three levels structured around a physiological metaphor. The basement, with its denser atmosphere, evokes inhalation and the depth of the lungs. The ground floor — once the center of storage and labor — corresponds to retention, the moment when breath is held. The mezzanine opens toward the light, suggesting exhalation and release.

At a time when art is often encountered through fast-moving digital images, Souffle de Fer emphasizes a slower, more physical engagement with materials. Painting, sculpture, textile, installation and light-based works reflect process-driven practices in which gesture and technique remain central. The exhibition’s framing draws a parallel to the building’s past: just as nails once connected planks in the hardware store, craftsmanship here links idea and material.

The participating artists present a broad cross-section of contemporary practices. Sculptors Pauline Orhel, Dmitrij Dihovichnij and Daria Surovtseva are shown alongside multidisciplinary artists including Nathan Chantob, Aurélie Lafourcade, Yana Bestrova, Emmanuel Gatti, Anna Ryabova, Vladimir Kara, Philippe Barnier, Vladimir Sokolov, Anna Sokolov, Anaïs Charras and Vitali Skvorkin, whose printmaking contributes to the exhibition. Painting is also prominently featured, with works by Vadim Narcissov, Nikita Chernoritski, Sanchit Babbar — who also maintains a parallel poetic practice — Andrei Andreev and Li Suntta.