SEDIMENTALISME II

Presented within the National School of Architecture of Saint-Étienne, the exhibition creates a space for reflection on the contemporary responsibilities of architecture and the invisible forms of violence that accompany the promises of modernity. It unfolds as a physical journey from the underground to the upper levels of the building, connecting excavation, construction, and collapse through three distinct vertical sequences.

Extractivism is not merely an economic logic; it is a way of organizing the world—one that treats certain territories as exploitable reserves, certain lives as expendable, and certain forms of destruction as necessary.

Ten years after SEDIMENTALISM, this new chapter explores the underground as a political, geological, and imaginary space. While the first project revealed a subterranean world in combustion, SEDIMENTALISM II follows extracted materials as they become the vertical forms that shape contemporary landscapes.

Over the past decade, ecological disasters, energy crises, and extractivist dynamics have intensified. Architectures of power continue to rise while excavated and exhausted territories expand beyond view. In this context, the exhibition uses art to offer a critical yet nuanced perspective, inviting us to rethink our relationship with the ground beneath us, natural resources, and possible futures.