Last weekend, the Design Biennale Emergence had the good taste to take place at the Centre National de la Danse, in Pantin – a majestic brutalist building by Jacques Kalisz, initally built as an administrative centre and today turned into a contemporary dance venue.
The Centre National de la Danse in Pantin
This session of the biennale was focusing on “Ressources” and was the occasion to show the newest and future trends in this matter. The artists and craftsmen and women exhibited showed the results of their search, from jewels and ceramics recycled from old crockery (Julie Decubber) to forms of hybridity between art and design focusing more on the form than on the use (Studiolow). We personally very much appreciated the “exotic” works by Anaïs Beaulieu diverting our visions on everyday objects with a slight “add-on” as well as many other works questioning our relationship to materials and everyday objects.
Julie Decubber’s jewels and ceramics from old crockery
Studiolow’s foam living room questionning the fragility of the hidden materials of our everyday structures
Anaïs Beaulieu’s embroidery rejoicing our everyday objects
On the other hand, other designers we appreciated as well focused on the necessity to work with new materials –like Anne & Thibaud Klepper‘s curved lamps made out of recycled plastics and oak wood and Victoria Lièvre‘s tableware made of orange pulp–, or to study the strength of local materials and forms –like Juliette Vergne‘s subtle silk imprints with natural dye to reproduce forms of local vegetation.
Anne & Thibaud Klepper’s curved lamps
Victoria Lièvre’s tableware made of orange pulp
Juliette Vergne’s silk imprint with natural dye
All in all, the event was a great occasion first to get out for a while and enjoy this incredible CND building, but also to question ourselves further on the topics brought forward by the Biennale. This was maybe our third or fourth time visiting it and althoug –of course– we can’t appreciate every work exhibited, we actually never regret it!
