Landscapes of Design

With this exhibition, Frac Centre-Val de Loire invites you to discover the exceptional collections of Domaine de Boisbuchet. Created in Charente in 1989, this research and mediation institute brings together each year professionals and amateurs from all over the world to experiment with applied design in all its forms, from furniture to fashion, from architecture to landscape, and from urban planning to social organisation. Around the fundamental questions of the current roles of design, the exhibition relates the works of 20th-century pioneers with those of contemporary women who have imagined new practices in the Boisbuchet workshops. Here, the idealism of classical modernism stands alongside everyday rural creations with a commitment to the common good, in search of a more ethical relationship with nature.

A research center
In 1989, Domaine de Boisbuchet, a centre for study and innovation of design, was created in the heart of the Charente. This research and mediation institute brings together each year professionals and amateurs from all over the world to experiment with applied design in all its forms. Far away from the hustle and bustle of the city in an architectural park amidst the fields, forests and waters of the hilly landscape—a nature that people have helped to shape and that serves as both a source of inspiration and an open-air laboratory.

Women at the heart of creation
The people who lead or participate in these workshops are always changing, as are the topics; and yet it has become apparent over the last 30 years that a large majority of women is taking up the challenges of holistic design that this place invites. It is indeed a majority of women who now study and teach in the various disciplines of design around the world. The engines of today's innovation are driven as much by women as by men, but often all that remains of this work's success is a body that trades under the lords of creation.

Yet it is precisely the practice of applied design that is characterised by the fact that it only leads to relevant results when different competences work together.

A new approach to design
Looking at nature as a universal source of inspiration and at the landscape that substantially shapes Boisbuchet's activities, these works gather around themes that are particularly relevant today. In its compilation of finished products and experiments documenting the work process, the exhibition at the same time reveals a wide range of procedures with which women designers proceed: industrial, craft and artistic productions, sociological, ecological and artistic investigations, analytical and intuitive methods.

An exhibition organised in collaboration with Domaine de Boisbuchet.

Curator: Mathias Schwartz-Clauss, assisted by Franca Spielmann

Artists
Aino Aalto & Alvar Aalto, Amina Agueznay, Vilma André, Gae Aulenti, Liisi Beckmann, Ila Bêka & Louise Lemoine, Maria Blaisse, Petra Blaisse, Ulrike Brandi, Gloria Caranica, Julie Chavaz, Juliana Chohfi, Shao Chuan Hsu, Carole Collet, Fabiana Costa, matali crasset, Anthony Dunne & Fiona Raby, Charles Eames & Ray Eames, Tamar Eisenberg, Carla Fernández, Laetitia Forst, Clara Gavina, Lina Ghotmeh, Lucía Grompone, Sigga Heimis, Anna Heringer, Larissa Honsek, Lin Hsiu-Hui, Marlène Huissoud, Hella Jongerius, Tanja Jordan, Miriam Josi, Johanna Keimeyer, Joanna Lałowska, Victoria de Larminat, Beatriz Eugenia Leal, Ya-Ching Lee, Torsten Lesszinsky, Sophie Liechti, Julia Lohmann, Sabine Marcelis & Brit van Nerven, Dorothee Maurer-Becker, Tania Mouraud, Madalena Nader, Constanca Nardi, Aurélia Noudelmann, Yusuké Y. Offhause, Hanna Oh, Charles Perdew & Edna Perdew, Charlotte Perriand, Ximena Perez Grobet, Stella Lee Prowse, Amalia Puga Cividanes, Ticiana Riberio Andriani, Sara Ricciardi, Flavia Rodrigues del Pra, Deidi von Schaewen, Pascale de Senarclens, Victoria Serre, silviaferpal, Linda Taalman, Katharina Unger, Benedicte Werner.