Wall sculptures titled after the phrases people use when they are listening. Say It Anyway – on show at Obumex in Knokke to 17 October, then in Paris during Maison & Objet in January
The Belgian designer and artist Delphine Cordie has presented Say It Anyway, a series of sculptural wall works that take the forms and proportions of jewellery to an architectural scale. The series opened at Obumex in Knokke on 2 October, after a preview on 1 October, and remains on view to 17 October. It travels to Paris during Maison & Objet in January 2027.
Delphine Cordie: from the body to the wall
Cordie’s starting point is the object worn close to the body: a piece of jewellery, small, handled, carrying personal use. Enlarged into wall sculpture, the same vocabulary of clasps, links, settings and proportions has to work at a distance and against a wall, not a neck or a wrist.
Her practice has moved between jewellery, sculpture and spatial objects without separating them, applying the same attention to proportion, tactility and balance at either scale. The move into larger formats puts that work inside a room.
The titles: I’m Listening, Go On, Take Your Time, I Might Be Wrong
Each work completes the title of the series with a phrase from ordinary conversation: I’m Listening, Go On, Take Your Time, I Might Be Wrong. Read together they form a sequence of responses — the things said by the person who is not speaking. The series is built around what it takes to speak without knowing how the words will land, and to listen without preparing an answer. The objects are conceived to hold a room’s attention and bring people to stop in front of them.
Stone, wood, metal and textile: Say It Anyway assembled in Ghent
The works are handmade in Cordie’s studio in Ghent, which she shares with the architect and designer Benoît Viaene. Stone, wood, metal and textiles are composed into reliefs assembled with the methods of a goldsmith: parts cut, fitted and joined at a tolerance closer to jewellery than to furniture.
That is the technical interest of the series. Goldsmithing works at millimetres, with joints meant to be seen at the distance of a hand; a wall piece is read from across a room and lit by whatever light the room has. Keeping the first standard at the second scale changes how the material is prepared, how the joins are finished and how the back of the piece is built.
Delphine Cordie between art, collectible design and craft
Cordie’s pieces sit between contemporary art and collectible design: sculptural in form, but made for domestic rooms, not galleries. Their recurring subjects are femininity, vulnerability, balance and connection, handled through material, proportion and rhythm, not figuration.
Say It Anyway, Obumex, Knokke, to 17 October 2026. Paris, during Maison & Objet, January 2027.
