SLARG researcher Wesley Meuris presents a new publication that further develops his long-term engagement with exhibition design as a spatial and conceptual practice.

This book, co-edited with Pamela Bianchi, emerges from the 2024 CIHA (Comité International d’Histoire de l’Art) congress in Lyon, organised in collaboration with Bianchi. Developed over two years, the volume brings together contributions from conference participants, extending an ongoing dialogue between curatorial practice, spatial design, and contemporary art research.

Exhibition Matters: Contemporary Displays and Exhibition-Making Practices explores exhibition design as a hybrid field where spatial structures and narrative construction are deeply interwoven. Rather than treating contradictions in exhibition-making as limitations, the book considers them as productive tensions that shape curatorial and design thinking.

Across international case studies—from Brazil to Italy, Turkey to the USA—the volume investigates spatial dramaturgy, including approaches to exhibiting nature and the more-than-human, interdisciplinary design processes, and emerging decolonial narratives. It brings together theoretical reflection and practice-based inquiry, addressing how exhibitions construct meaning beyond objects alone.

The publication includes a series of essays by contributors such as Pamela Bianchi, Adrien Gardère, Marina Khémis, and Wesley Meuris, whose chapter Exhibition Designs as a Sculptural Practice reflects on exhibition-making as a spatial and sculptural methodology.

An accompanying interview between Wesley Meuris and Pamela Bianchi further situates his artistic practice within the field of exhibition design and its expanded narrative potential.