With works by Mirko Baselgia, Emma Bruschi, Antoine Félix Bürcher, Lisa Lurati, Léonard von Muralt and Juliette Sallin.

Contemporary art's interest in ecological issues increasingly goes beyond the themes conveyed by the works themselves, and is also expressed through a profound reflection on their materiality. This kind of approach is part of a “neo-materialist” vision, which sees matter as a dynamic agent, independent of human action and driven by its own power of transformation and vitality.

The exhibition Matières errantes (Wandering Matter) brings together artists for whom confronting the question of materiality is a form of activism, a response to the environmental crisis that invites us to rethink the way we live and act in the world. By observing and interacting with natural forms and materials, as well as with the structures and functions of other living organisms, their artistic practices are reshaped and sometimes open up to the surprises of uncontrolled co-creation. The use of ancient artistic and craft techniques and non-toxic materials, even those they produce themselves, also helps them to anchor their practices in sustainability.

Lisa Lurati perpetuates the old photographic technique of the cyanotype and revisits it by experimenting with water and vinegar to enliven her dreamlike compositions with countless shades of colour. Using PET matrices instead of metal plates to create monotypes also enables her to obtain prints with less sharp but more vibrant outlines, while making more sparing use of resources by reclaiming an everyday material.

Antoine Félix Bürcher's sculptures are made from glass carefully collected by the artist which, through a process of fusion in moulds, has abandoned its usual transparency and acquired a density and patina evoking the passage of time and the stratification of histories.

Léonard von Muralt uses the ear of wheat as a symbol of the food essential to human survival, of vitality and divine generosity, to address the issue of the over-exploitation of natural resources. The encounter between a simple, modest material like plaster and increasingly rare and precious materials like gold and oil is an invitation to question our scales of value….