HORNU.- Following its debut exhibition in 2003, the nendo phenomenon has developed at an astounding pace. Under the guidance of Oki Sato, the Japanese collective has continued to impress us through the coherence and power of its vocabulary, its design that is imbued with simple, Japanese lines and given a twist not devoid of humour. Weather it is creating furniture, objects, accessories, eating utensils or interiors and architectures, nendo responds to the most broad-ranging projects with the same natural rigour, charged with enormous inherent poetry. Now aged 39, Oki Sato has enthusiastically accepted the Centre of Innovation and Design, Grand-Hornu’s invitation and for four months takes over all the interior and exterior spaces: stables, the hay store, atrium, north wing, the square courtyard and the oval courtyard… His exhibition forms an exclusive creation, devised in close relationship with the location. This is a European premiere on such a scale.

We tend to perceive the existence and positioning of objects by subconsciously following "outlines", and by distinguishing the "inside and outside" of these contours.
This also means that objects with obscure outlines cannot always be identified as objects, and conversely if outlines are visible, that information which is not visible can be subconsciously supplemented.

The exhibition takes this fundamental principle into account, and the following ideas were implemented as a theme.

The existence of items are blurred by manipulating outlines in various ways, or the viewers can recognize some existence of an item visually in their minds by making invisible outlines visible.

In total 200 works were amassed including the following:

"border table" which presents a fragmented contour of rooms, "trace collection" capturing "traces" of movement, "un-printed material", a piece that portrays various forms and expressions of paper through outline, "objectextile" a collaboration project with Jil Sander, where contours of 3D objects are retrieved and turned into textile,? and "jellyfish vase" a new piece that attempts to reestablish the relationship between vase and water with colour boundaries.