La piscine, coming art center in Lyon, commissioned a study to apprehend their identity, offer and strategy to develop. The project sets in a former aquatic center with two outside pools, surrounded by nature, it will program creation residences and exhibitions. Their initial idea was to use the architecture of the empty pools as main exhibition space and to be financed mainly by the city and the region.

I proposed the opposite. We have the opportunity of an aquatic center in good functioning condition. Let’s put back the water. So we offer a world-unique experience of swimming and sun bathing amongst art works, immersive, sensorial, active, with multiple dimensions ; we invite artists to create in relation to this element leading to a unique collection ; being in water, people are more playful, the body is more receptive, so the apprehension of art is enhanced ; we create a cultural institution inclusive (everybody loves water) and exclusive (the pool is symbolically the place of luxury, so people feel privileged to visit the show) ; we can imagine a member club and music events ; finally we privatize receptions by the pool surrounded by art to patrons rather than asking for subsidies, providing greater finance and independence.