Bancs d’utopie, 2015
Traveling exhibition. Thirteen benches, print edition, wall listing.
Variable dimensions

Francis Cape’s exhibition Bancs d’utopie consists of identical reproductions of 13 benches from European community societies. These are part of a larger project undertaken by the artist since 2011 under the title of Utopian Benches with benches used by communities located in the United States. For the artist, the benches « oppose individualism to communitarianism, and advocate values different from the dominant individualistic materialism. The benches are seats that are shared; everyone sits at the same height, without hierarchy». During the exhibition, these seats are used for meetings around the questions inherent to this project.
The exhibition is the result of a research work of a group of students from the École des Beaux-Arts de Lyon between 2014 and 2018, under the direction of Olivier Vadrot. The work joined the collection of the Fonds Régional d’Art Contemporain Franche-Comté in 2018.

Coproduction : FRAC Franche-Comté, Familistère de Guise, ENSBA Lyon
Photographs from the exhibition at the Musée de la Mine in Saint-Etienne, as part of the 10th International Design Biennial, 2017, ©Florian Kleinefenn