Céleste Boursier-Mougenot brings floating ceramics to Athens
Céleste Boursier-Mougenot presents Clinamen, a sound installation featuring white porcelain bowls drifting in pools at Onassis Mandra, Athens, through December 5, 2026.
Stock photo for illustration only, not from the actual event
- French artist Céleste Boursier-Mougenot brings his shifting sound installation Clinamen outdoors to Onassis Mandra in Athens.
- The exhibition runs from September 26 to December 5, 2026, featuring hundreds of white porcelain bowls drifting across three circular pools.
- Water movement and gentle currents cause the bowls to interact, producing delicate bell-like tones as they touch and separate.
- Outdoor environmental elements like traffic, rain, and bird sounds actively mingle with the porcelain orchestra in an open system.
First conceived in 1997, Clinamen by French artist Céleste Boursier-Mougenot has never been a fixed installation, and it is now being presented outdoors for the first time at Onassis Mandra in Athens, Greece. Water, porcelain bowls, circular basins, and gentle currents set the vessels in motion, ensuring that every single presentation produces a completely different configuration, sound, and rhythm.
More than twenty iterations have followed the original creation, with each version meticulously adjusted to match the architecture and acoustics of its specific host location. In Athens, hundreds of white porcelain bowls drift across three circular pools, and each individual bowl has been hand-selected by Boursier-Mougenot for its particular timbre.
The title of the artwork derives from the Epicurean concept of clinamen, which refers to unpredictable minute swerves of atoms. This philosophy is mirrored in the installation where subtle environmental shifts alter the path and musical output of the drifting vessels.
Stock photo for illustration only, not from the actual event
Moving the installation outdoors allows natural environmental variables that previous indoor presentations largely controlled to shape the experience. Traffic, human voices, birds, footsteps, wind, and rain all mingle seamlessly with the sound of the porcelain orchestra. As the bowls approach, separate, and meet again, their gentle collisions generate delicate, bell-like tones driven entirely by the continuous movement of the water.
Set within the open-air setting of Onassis Mandra, a passing gust of wind can instantly alter the movement of the bowls, while rain introduces an entirely new acoustic layer to the composition. Visitors can experience this evolving sound installation until December 5, 2026.
Source: designboom
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