201 flip-flops beat for meriem bennani’s installation in paris

201 flip-flops turn Lafayette Anticipations into an orchestra

Artist Meriem Bennani transforms the familiar flip-flop into a vibrating instrument of collective rhythm with her large-scale installation Sole Crushing, on view at Lafayette Anticipations in Paris until February 8th, 2026. The project fills the foundation’s entire vertical space with 201 flip-flops animated by a pneumatic system and synchronized to a musical composition created in collaboration with musician and producer Reda Senhaji (aka Cheb Runner).

Originally presented at Fondazione Prada in Milan (find designboom’s previous coverage here) and now entirely reimagined for Lafayette Anticipations, Sole Crushing becomes an immense polyphonic instrument. The installation invites visitors to wander through an organic environment of moving percussion instruments, including a sprawling island of sandals that crawl across the floor, vertical ladders and spiral structures covered in shoes, and a massive drum suspended from the top floor, commanding the whole ensemble. Each flip-flop, connected by two air tubes, strikes against materials like wood, plexiglass, fabric, or metal, producing a range of percussive tones that merge into a collective pulse.

all images by Aurélien Mole

Meriem Bennani channels collective energy through rhythm

Meriem Bennani’s rhythmic structure draws from Moroccan musical traditions, particularly dakka marrakchia, a ritual of drumming and chanting that builds to a peak of spiritual intensity. The Moroccan artist, together with Reda Senhaji, translates this energy into a contemporary orchestra, merging the hypnotic repetition of protest chants with the ecstatic cadence of football crowds and communal ceremonies. ‘I try to recreate moments of collective catharsis, rituals, atmospheres of big stadiums, and chaotic states of exaltation or revolt,’ Bennani says. ‘What interests me is to recreate what we feel in those moments of social utopia, where, without explanation, everyone knows what they are supposed to do within a group.’

The title Sole Crushing plays on the English expression ‘soul-crushing’, something emotionally numbing or draining, by swapping ‘soul’ for ‘sole.’ The pun literalizes the phrase through the slap of rubber soles beating rhythm and noise, evoking the sonic unity of bodies in motion. Bennani’s sandals become a democratic medium, being inexpensive, ubiquitous, and universally understood. The artist recalls being drawn to the flip-flop’s simplicity and material elasticity, its capacity to deform, bounce, and resist rigidity. ‘They’re polymorphic,’ she explains. ‘They can change shape and become something else. In a way, they escape the rigidity of authority and rules.’

This slipper, found everywhere from Moroccan markets to beach resorts, thus becomes a social metaphor. In Bennani’s hands, it symbolizes the tension between playfulness and resistance, the joyful, rebellious energy of the crowd. The artist connects the object’s humorous familiarity with its latent potential for dissent: the flip-flop as weapon, meme, or political symbol, from viral clips of shoes thrown at leaders to sculptures commemorating these gestures.

artist Meriem Bennani transforms the familiar flip-flop into a vibrating instrument of collective rhythm

duende, dakka, and digital humor

Bennani’s installation channels the duende, the mysterious force described by Federico García Lorca as the soul that possesses the flamenco dancer, and fuses it with dakka marrakchia, the Moroccan tradition that summons transcendence through repetition. These cultural references are filtered through the artist’s signature language of irony and pop sensibility, merging high and low, sacred and absurd.

Air circulates through its pneumatic network like breath through lungs; rhythms ripple upward, guided not by a single conductor but by a collective pulse. Bennani likens this to the maâlem, the heartbeat figure in Moroccan ensembles, who leads through rhythm rather than authority.

In this work, Bennani extends her ongoing investigation into how bodies, technologies, and symbols shape shared experience. Her practice, which spans sculpture, video, and kinetic installation, combines realistic elements and fantasy to reveal the hybrid nature of contemporary culture.

Sole Crushing is on view at Lafayette Anticipations, Paris

the large-scale installation fills the foundation’s entire vertical space with 201 flip-flops

the filp-flops are animated by a pneumatic system

synchronized to a musical composition created in collaboration with Reda Senhaji