L’Étoffe de l’Europe® - Brussels - Belgium

The data-weaving of European integration as a source of inspiration:

Since the birth of the European Union as an institution, men and women have been patiently weaving the threads of this entity, first economic, then political, founded by 6 States gradually joined by others to form today a group of 27 States bringing together nearly 450 million citizens whose diversity is beyond question.

Power, revival and belonging, the 3 key words of France's project for its 6-month Presidency of the European Union Council, were as inspiring as they were embodied in all the areas dedicated to the French Presidency in the EU Counsil’s two buildings, Juste Lipse and Europa, in Brussels.

Weaving is the common thread running through all the artistic interventions. It expresses flexibility, patience, agility, and the collective in its strength of proposal and action but also in its capacity for resilience.

ATELIERS ADELINE RISPAL created a textile that is complex and rich, joyful and sparkling, whose warp is made up of the colors of the EU Member States’ flags and whose weft is made up of the flags of the successive Presidencies, a kind of data-weaving that we have called L'Étoffe de l'Europe® (The Fabric of Europe®), as if it were self-evident.

This fabric is made up of the materials, values and projects that the institutions, nations and citizens of Europe weave together, while expressing the diversity of their cultures: together, they participate in the weaving of a common work.

The Fabric of Europe® has become the name of the entire project.

It embodies the paradigm shift of environmental transition. It has been designed to be exemplary in this respect, both in the overall approach to eco-design and economic management and in its manufacture: low consumption of raw materials and energy, recycling of all equipment, materials and waste, short production and transport circuits.

The Étoffe de l'Europe® takes several artistic forms: architectural, scenographic, graphic, digital and textile. Through seven dedicated spaces, including a monumental 650 m2 textile installation and a 16-metre-long data-weaving fresco in the Europa Forum, as well as 12 lifts in the Juste Lipse building.