Gabriel Fontana

Who gets picked for the team, and who is left on the bench?
Who gets to speak, and who goes unheard?
What do we do when the collective is defined by exclusion?

These questions are far from abstract. They unfold in institutions, in public space, at school, within families, in sports stadiums, and on the streets—and they lie at the heart of Gabriel Fontana’s practice.

As the first solo exhibition in France dedicated to the artist and designer, Forming Alliances embodies a practice where object design recedes to make room for the creation of collective experiences. Trained at the École supérieure d’art et de design de Saint-Étienne and the Design Academy Eindhoven, Gabriel Fontana has spent nearly a decade developing a social, collaborative, and political approach to design.

His field of research? Sport and physical education, conceived not as arenas for competition, but as genuine social laboratories. Learning to build a team without reproducing traditional hierarchies becomes a central challenge. The goal is to unlearn the gender codes and performance norms that, starting in the playground, dictate who is fit to play and who remains sidelined. While coeducation has been the rule in schools since the 1970s, sharing the same field is not enough to create true equality.

The exhibition brings together four unprecedented team games developed since 2019, including the project Race/Care, specially designed for les Abattoirs and the Cour d’Avril. Previously activated in a variety of contexts—schools, sports clubs, queer communities, museums, and even during the Paris 2024 Olympic Games—these setups become spaces of friction where dynamics of inclusion and exclusion are laid bare. By proposing new rules, alternative playing fields, and modular sports equipment, Gabriel Fontana creates the conditions for everyone to find their place within the collective.

In a context marked by social tension and the rise of authoritarian and exclusionary discourse, his projects remind us that the question of alliance is profoundly political. Recent mobilizations, joined by young people fighting for their future, highlight that democracy is not just about obeying the rules, but about being able to question them. The exhibition thus invites us to build together, here and now, the conditions that allow us to form a society.

Blurring the boundary between the museum, the gymnasium, and the running track, Forming Alliances invites visitors to actively experience these situations. It is not merely about playing, but about embodying political gestures: listening to one another, unlearning, shifting one's perspective, offering support, and adapting.

Curators:
Lauriane Gricourt, Director, les Abattoirs
Tatiana Rybaltchenko, Curator, les Abattoirs

In partnership with AVRIL, an independent cultural venue dedicated to architecture, art, craftsmanship, and design, Paris
With the support of the Amis des Abattoirs (Friends of les Abattoirs)