Silver Lion at the 2019 Venice Biennale of Dance
In Affordable Solution for Better Living, Théo Mercier and Steven Michel undertake a reflection on the question of the beautiful for all and the ideological object: furniture associated with the Swedish brand IKEA, but also with a social utopia full of contradictions. On the stage, the “alpha male” orchestrates his life in the form of instructions for use. At once study subject and researcher, he is the piece of furniture, the one who assembles it, and its user. This half-man, half-furniture centaur, sinks into an artificial well-being and indulges in practices that bring into play all the roles of his life: those imposed by family, society, industry, and the economy. Physical performance and domestic drama have never cohabited so well.
