Paris Design Week 2021 : Exposition "Before and After : the history of a handcrafted object"

September 2021 1-129 avenue Daumesnil

A story of desire

13 designers from the Viaduc des Arts wanted to take up the theme proposed this year by Paris Design Week: "Desirable Development" and invite you to follow a narrative around the creative act. The creative act, that impalpable act where the mystery is played out; that emergence that seems magical to most.

The act of creation is this process where the imaginary, culture, know-how, technique and mystery, the indescribable, are mixed together to produce a new proposal. The desirable, which is born from the raw material to delight the viewer's imagination.
What mobilises each of the creators is indeed an unquenchable curiosity, an ability to renew the practices of know-how, a desire to seek, invent, innovate, peregrinate from the initial material.

A tribute to the material

Questioning gestures and materials, and their transformation, is certainly the most beautiful tribute that creators can pay to their profession, to Arts and Crafts. If the disciplines are radically different (indeed, what do furniture designers, lighting craftsmen, cabinetmakers, goldsmiths, designers, feather makers, boot makers, etc. have in common?), the desire to express oneself is the same: to show, understand and feel the invisible: the act of creation in the raw.
The exhibition plunges the viewer into the heart of each person's work, from the initial, unprocessed raw material, to the final proposal: the finished object.
"Before" and "After" and here the viewer is emotionally embarked, imagining the "during"; trying to understand what is the secret of the transformation.

A didactic journey

"Before and After: the history of a handcrafted object" is thus also an invitation to summon one's own imagination in the wake of the creators.
The tour is intended to be didactic and allows for a fine perception, within the bowels of creation. It is a question of looking as closely as possible at the "desirable development" of a creation, of understanding the creative mobilisation of each one. Each creator had to transform the desirable material into a desired object in the eyes of the public. And the magic happens; the 13 craftsmen unveil their unique pieces.

A rare and precious event, the creative act is laid bare until the finished object appears. The sensation of discovering, understanding and being an accomplice in the artistic intimacy of these 13 creators enthralls the eye and the heart, inspires the viewer.
Sketches, first sketches, prototypes and research using raw materials punctuate the journey, questioning the desires of the craftsmen and giving elements of understanding of their work.

And one understands the community of spirit that animates the creators of the Viaduc des Arts, a unique place of creation in the heart of Paris.

All the news