Esch2022's Main Exhibition Remixing Industrial Pasts Features Italian Design

Esch2022, the European Capital of Culture in Luxembourg, has opened its main exhibition Remixing Industrial Pasts at the Belval steelworks site. The show covers 100 years of industrial history (1870-1970) of Esch and its surroundings. The exhibition was conceived and designed by Italian creatives: the Tokonoma collective, 2FArchitettura, and composer Max Viale. It uses films, projections, sound content, and custom scores across content stations. The Belval site, once home to Arcelor Mittal, is partially still active but has been transformed over the past 20 years with universities, residences, restaurants, and exhibition spaces. The exhibition aims to narrate industrial heritage in an engaging way, avoiding dry archival materials. Curators Chiara Ligi (Tokonoma) and Alessandro Floris (2FArchitettura) expressed hope that similar narrative experiments will be tried in Italy, where industrial identity is often seen as a problem rather than heritage to be preserved.