“The small, brightly coloured balls scattered on the floor in Claire Fontaine’s Untitled (Corps étrangers) (2017),” curator Helena Reckitt writes, “present a scene of horizontal gathering and assemblage.” Forming an organic crowd whose visual referents are play, celebration, therapy, relief of anxiety and tension, and enclosure, stretching, and bodily orifices, the sculpture evokes both corporeal and social pressures.

Filled with seeds, the balls are modeled on those used in anti-gymnastics techniques devised by Thérèse Bertherat. Employing subtle and precise movements to support improvement of muscle tone and decreased stress, anti-gymnastic approaches treat body and mind as intertwined, and draw from philosophical and psychoanalytic traditions as well as body therapy. When placed under parts of the body, the seed balls—used to facilitate movements or draw attention to specific muscular systems—initially cause discomfort and contraction. Claire Fontaine equates the experience of strain followed by release with the positive impact that foreigners can have on society: “Initially rejected, they can bring the community to a new state, more harmonious and balanced than the previous one.”