“The Invention of Everyday Life” in Bordeaux: Playful diversions with a political and poetic aim

Selection Designed from common objects reused, recycled, gleaned or pirated, the CAPC of Bordeaux hosts a wide range of joyful and militant works, which invite us to think about the world differently.

By Julien Bordier

Published on August 23, 2025 at 9:00 a.m.

Marinella Senatore's "Protest Bike" on display in the nave of the CAPC-Museum of Contemporary Art in Bordeaux. ARTHUR PEQUIN/CAPC

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Equipped with megaphones on the handlebars and an LED screen attached to the luggage rack, ready to broadcast slogans and grievances, Marinella Senatore's "Protest Bike" awaits its arrival at the next demonstration. The immense nave of the CAPC in Bordeaux hosts a wide range of joyful and militant works that propose other ways of appropriating objects and thinking about the world. "The Invention of Everyday Life" takes its title from the essay by Michel de Certeau, priest, philosopher, and historian. Sandra Patron, the curator and director of the Bordeaux art center, has imagined an exhibition that is an antidote to a society more prey than ever to fears and authoritarianism. The pieces presented are less objects of contemplation than instruments of combat and calls to action. They invite us to escape the norms of consumer society to forge new relationships with our fellow human beings and with nature. How? By developing subversive and participatory strategies, by resorting to makeshift systems, cunning, diversion, parasitism, etc. Works are thus born from collection, recycling, reuse, gleaning or piracy.

Daniel Otero Torres erects a tall wooden hut in the form of a refuge, as if an activist had decided to occupy the nave. The installation echoes Oliver Hardt's film, made up of archival footage showing various protest movements between 1968 and 2023, from the United States to Hong Kong, and…