ReEncounters Exhibition
Art, Memory & Materiality converge to redefine space.​
Atelier Mondial. 2024
Basel, Switzerland
The exhibition concept invites us to consider how we occupy spaces and the meaning derived from engaging with multifaceted spectrums of artistic and embodied knowledge. By reflecting on their encounters with the AT program, artists showcase how they connect with memory, materiality and community through art.“Our interactions with different environments impact how we use space, engage with materials, and approach the creative process.
Societies, cultural practices, and knowledge systems are constantly evolving, reshaping how we perceive the world and how artistic knowledge circulates.”We deconstruct established narratives and imagine new possibilities, inviting viewers to reflect on how memories of people and places are imprinted in our collective consciousness.
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“How you inhabit a space is also how you construct it” - Bell Hooks
Curatorial Statement
"(Re)encounters" explores the power of artistic creation as a site of encounter—between people, histories, materials, and cultural knowledge.
The exhibition invites reflection on how art can facilitate both new connections and the reactivation of past ones, situating memory and materiality as central to understanding ourselves and the communities we are part of.
Developed during the artists’ residencies, these works reveal how cultural exchange, sensory engagement with materials, and everyday interactions inform not only artistic practice but also broader notions of identity, belonging, and collective memory.
Art, in this context, becomes a means of mapping how we relate to the environments and knowledge systems that we encounter. Through the artists’ processes, we witness how new spaces and perspectives reshape the creative act itself—how artistic knowledge is not static, but fluid, responsive, and dialogic.
Salon Mondial serves as both a physical and conceptual site for these investigations—a place where the convergence of diverse artistic encounters enables new imaginaries. The exhibition becomes a constellation of practices, where individual narratives intersect to challenge dominant discourses and propose alternative modes of connection across cultural, territorial, and temporal boundaries.
By foregrounding memory and materiality, "(Re)encounters" speaks to the political and poetic dimensions of art-making. It asks us to consider the ways in which the traces of people and places continue to live on in artistic gestures, and how these imprints might offer pathways towards more inclusive and reflective forms of engagement.
Ultimately, the exhibition suggests that every act of creation is a form of (re)encounter—with the self, with others, and with the complex worlds we navigate. It calls on us to critically engage with the spaces we inhabit and to imagine how art can serve as a bridge towards more connected, compassionate futures.