15 designers + 15 artisans...

Each pair had about 2 months to meet up, think, design and make the pieces, with only a dimension constraint of 60 x 60 x 60 cm The purpose of this project, initiated by Emilie Colin Garros, Philippine Lemaire and David des Moutis in summer 2010, is to promote a mode of creation based on the proximity and to reflect the possibility of innovation and creation in a framework where the discussion and the transmission of technical and practical knowledge are possible. These exchanges of process raise the question of exclusive paternity and the potential influence of the craft industry into the practice of design. The productions accomplished state the beginnings of a limited production toward a possible industrialization. Besides the pieces generated by the pairs for the biennial and shown in the second floor, another part of the exhibition located in the first floor presents 30 personal projects previously done by the designers and the craftmen before their collaboration. It is a mean to identify more personally the participants of this project and to reveal in a face-to-face between craftmen and designers, the specificities that belong to them. These projects hence prefigure the production issued by these encounters. The pieces shown in the exhibition are not only issue from the industry but are also self-produced pieces in limited series. They put in evidence the diversity of the techniques and the constraints that characterized them.

The exhibition "15 designers 15 artisans 1 graphiste 1 critique 1 off" has took place during the International Biennial for Design In Saint-Etienne, France, between the 20th of November and the 5th of December.