From June 4 to 20 at the Cité de la Mode et du Design in Paris, the exhibition L’âge du faire is on show. Initially produced by PARTICULE14 for the Saint-Étienne Design Biennial, the L’âge du faire exhibition is presented at Les Docks, cité de la Mode et du Design for Designer’s Days. Based on the theme of Empathy, or the experience of the other, PARTICULE14 ‘s L’âge du Faire exhibition explores urbanity through objects, furniture and installations using steel and lightweight concrete techniques. The exhibition was produced thanks to the collaboration and expertise of La Tôlerie Forezienne and Concrete LCDA.
The PARTICULE14 association, launched in September 2011 by Laurent Denize d’Estrées, founder of the LHLC presse group, is a cultural and educational association whose aim is to raise awareness among professionals and amateurs alike of design practices in all their forms (graphic design, fashion, industry, objects and spaces, gastronomy, the world of sounds, scents and plants). For this exhibition, empathy is summoned, illuminating the greyness of a post-industrial crisis. Today, empathy is seen as an emotional contagion, a shared mode of knowing the other, whether it’s sorrow or joy. It’s the human propensity to feel the other’s feelings, be they sorrow or happiness. Sociologists place it in the realm of the imagination, while the religious speak of compassion. By definition, designers are guided by empathy, since they are constantly putting themselves in other people’s shoes to design objects that improve the quality of life for everyone. At the same time, they are entropic activators, since the objects they design devour energy during their production, use and recycling.
The members of PARTICULE14 search for the loophole through open discussion. Words lead to the object, as if hiding under the tablecloth. A few strokes later, the dialogue with matter establishes this bridge from one human shore to the other. Pencil strokes, strokes of mood or of life, the gentle rubbing of forms and concepts now exists, generating living objects that tell us stories, speak to us without cumbersome speeches, and unite us. PARTICULE14 ‘s energy is neither fashionable nor nostalgic; it defies the times in which it is modestly and realistically inserted, participating naturally and sustainably in a new age of making, whether it be described as empathetic or not.
L’âge du faire June 4-20, 2013 – Les Docks, cité de la mode et du design, 34 quai d’Austerlitz, 75013 Paris
www.paris-docks-en-seine.fr
open Tuesday to Sunday, 11am to 9pm -Free admission
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