Spinning Around by Sophia Taillet: Mirrors, Movement, and Mesmerising Stillness
Installations have a way of spinning you off your axis.
I was in town for Paris Design Week 2025 and caught Sophia Taillet’s installation in the Museum of Hunting and Nature, a hidden jewel in the Marais. Minimalist yet interactive, it transformed the courtyard into a dizzying, poetic theatre of reflection, unfolding quiet magic between stone walls and an endless sky.
Museum of Hunting and Nature (Musée de la Chasse et de la Nature)
Nestled within the 17th-century Hôtel de Guénégaud and its 18th-century neighbour, the Hôtel de Mongelas, the Museum of Hunting and Nature’s architecture is a lesson in Parisian grandeur—high windows painted robin’s-egg blue, intricate ironwork, and a cobbled courtyard that hums with centuries-old stories. Since its inauguration in 1967, the museum has been both a cabinet of curiosities and a sanctuary for art, weaving together taxidermy, contemporary works, and exquisite objets d’art to explore the tangled relationship between humans and the wild. There’s something deeply intimate about the place; it feels more like the home of a passionate collector than a traditional institution.
Paris Design Week: The City as a Creative Playground
Every September, Paris Design Week sweeps across the city, inviting creatives, design lovers, and curious wanderers to experience the French capital as an open-air gallery. From September 4 to 13, 2025, Paris pulses with energy as ateliers, concept stores, and legendary galleries unveil their latest visions. The event is more than a trade show—it’s a citywide celebration, transforming Paris into a living stage for contemporary art, collectable design, and innovative craftsmanship. Maison&Objet, the cornerstone fair, anchors a vibrant program that spills into trendy districts and secret courtyards. For anyone with a passion for design or a thirst for inspiration, Paris Design Week is the perfect time to discover emerging talents, attend vernissages, and get lost in a maze of pop-up exhibitions and creative happenings. I always find the atmosphere electric—there’s a sense of discovery in the air, and even the most familiar corners of Paris suddenly feel new. This year, Spinning Around is one of those hidden gems, perfectly encapsulating the spirit of innovation and poetic transformation that defines Paris Design Week.
Sophia Taillet: The Artist in Motion
Enter Sophia Taillet, a French artist-designer whose practice navigates the intersection of art, design, and craft. A graduate of the National School of Decorative Arts in Paris, with a formative stint at the School of Visual Arts in New York, Taillet is fascinated by matter, movement, and gesture. Her work has been showcased in prestigious spaces such as the Palais de Tokyo and the Ricard Foundation, and she has garnered accolades for her interdisciplinary approach—one that often blurs the boundaries between sculpture, choreography, and sound. There’s a tactile curiosity to her projects, a sense that she’s as interested in how things feel as in how they look. Spinning Around is a perfect example of her talent for transforming simple materials into immersive and emotional experiences.
Spinning Around: The Installation
In the museum’s courtyard, nine circular mirrors, each perched atop a sleek, metallic base, sit perfectly still like tops fallen onto their sides (though I really thought they resembled the fly button on my jeans). That is, until someone comes along to give them a little push, causing them to rotate slowly in silence, orchestrating a hypnotic dance of light and reflection that gradually succumbs to friction and comes to a stop once again.
The installation is deceptively simple—mirrors spinning on their axes, catching glimpses of sky, stone, and passerby—but the effect is utterly transfixing. As I walked among them, the historic mansion’s architecture fractured and reassembled itself in the mirrored surfaces, every detail doubled and transformed in a tilted world. And there’s a strange intimacy in seeing your own reflection glide across centuries-old stones. The circular shapes and the broken reflections of the courtyard reminded me of the Pensieve in Harry Potter, as if I were a bystander watching a memory unfold immersively. And in the sweep of each turning mirror, I caught fleeting moments of connection—with the space, with history, with myself.
The exhibition’s concept of circularity is not just visual; it’s almost philosophical. Sometimes the mirrors roll dangerously close to the edge, but they always swerve at the right moment before repeating themselves in a full circle. The back-and-forth motions serve as reminders of the cyclical nature of life, an invitation to reflect on our own rhythms and the beauty found in kinetic energy—or the lack thereof.
Related Posts
