clinamen (v.13)

1997–2026Plywood platform, 3 circular PVC liners, water pumps, porcelain bowlsEach basin: 10 metres diameter × 0.30 metres depth

Céleste Boursier-Mougenot’s practice transforms familiar, everyday materials into musical arrangements through movement and chance. In this iteration of clinamen, reproduced within one of Mina Zayed’s historical port warehouses, white porcelain bowls float on the surface of three water-filled basins, circulating gently under the influence of a hidden current. As they drift and collide, the bowls function as percussive instruments, generating a continuously evolving acoustic composition shaped by chance. Bringing together sound, movement, colour, and space, the artwork transforms a simple physical system into an immersive environment in which visual and auditory experience unfold as a single, ever-changing event.

Artist's Biography

Céleste Boursier-Mougenot

Sète, France

Initially trained as a composer, Céleste Boursier-Mougenot is internationally recognised for large-scale acoustic installations that draw on nature and the rhythms of everyday life to explore the relationship between sound, space, and movement. Working with domestic and natural materials, he creates environments that engage the viewer’s senses and invite a state of rêverie, heightening our awareness of the perceptual world around us. Boursier-Mougenot’s clinamen has been presented internationally at leading institutions, most recently at Park Avenue Armory, New York (2026), and Bourse de Commerce – Pinault Collection, Paris (2025). Other recent solo exhibitions include FRAC Normandie, Caen (2026); MAAT Gallery, Lisbon (2026); Arter Museum, Istanbul (2019); Shanghai 21st Century Minsheng Art Museum (2017); and Copenhagen Contemporary (2016). In 2015, he represented France at the 56th Venice Biennale.

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