The present thesis focuses on interactions between solid particles and the liquid in which they are submerged. These interactions are first probed in the laboratory using pendulum experiments: one or two dense spheres are suspended by thin strings and induced to oscillate inside the liquid. The cases examined include in particular the collision of one sphere with another. Laser-illumination and refractive index matching of the transparent solid and liquid materials are used to obtain unhindered views of selected 2D slices cut through the 3D flows. Long exposure images and particle tracking velocimetry are used to characterize the motions of microparticles dispersed in the liquid. The liquid motions around the moving spheres feature distinct vortex motions superposed onto an irrotational flow. Based on these observations, simplified 2D inviscid flow computations are set-up and applied to idealized flows involving coupled solid and liquid motions. In particular, the motion of a disk induced by the passage of a vortex pair is examined.