"IN PROGRESS" EXHIBITION, design confronting progress. At the Grand-Hornu Images – 09/05>12/09/10 – POSH Media Inc.

April 7, 2010 3:46 pm Published by POSH Media Leave your thoughts

PRESS RELEASE “IN PROGRESS” EXHIBITION, design confronting progress : Studio Wieki Somers (NL) – Satyendra Pakhalé (NL) – Sebastian Bergne (GB) – Big-Game (FR-BE-CH) – Matali Crasset (FR) – Delo Lindo (FR- Étienne Mineur (FR) – Ana Mir et Emili Padros (ES) – Normal Studio (FR)

At the Grand-Hornu Images (BELGIUM) 09/05>12/09/10

From the 9th of May 2010 to the 12th of September 2010, Grand-Hornu Images host an exhibition dedicated to design and to the idea of progress that it relates to. For a long time, progress was embodied in the industrial creation of new products that responded to real needs for the improvement of daily life. Concerned with well-being for everyone, the designer held a key place in the creation of these objects and was often associated with the ideology of progress. In considering this, now it seems to be the right time to invite designers to re-think this idea of progress. This leads us to the field of the responsibility of the designer in the relationship that he establishes with the industry in particular, and more generally with the public.

With curating by Jeanne Quéheillard, design critic and teacher, designer Nestor Perkal and Laurence Salmon, journalist-teacher, this exhibition has the goal of initiating a research with designers to build up a set of critical elements belonging to design and to its modes of action. Given that the historical, economic and social context has changed, to what form of progress can they refer now? How do they question their practices with regard to the society in which they work?

Nine international designers have been invited to examine Progress. Nine projects are being presented. For this occasion, the designers have produced a response in the form of prototypes, micro-architectures, graphical installations or objects that explore the idea of progress and hinge on problems such as technology, mobility, consumption, the rituals of life and death, well-being, innovation and the environment. The artist Pierre Leguillon provides his contribution to this exhibition with an installation where filmed images document a part of the history of design in its relationship with progress. A series of interviews clarifies the project of each designer. It unites nine experts around the various subjects approached: Gérard Bazalgette, psychoanalyst (Bordeaux), Maurizio Ferraris, professor of Philosophy (Turin), Nicholas Henchoz, Director of EPFL+ECAL (Lausanne), Pierre-Damien Huyghe, philosopher and professor (Paris), Marc Giget, professor holding the Chair in the Economics of Technology and Innovation at Cnam (Paris), Ezio Manzini, designer and professor at the Politecnico (Milan), Jacques-François Marchandise, Director of Development of the Fondation Internet Nouvelle génération (FING-Paris), Serge Mouangue, designer at Nissan (Tokyo), Andreas Ruby, theoretician and architecture critic (Berlin).

The staging is being done by Nestor Perkal (assisted by Noé Noviant). The designers’ projects are shown separately thanks to light-weight structures that are sometimes all-enveloping or like large screens that promote visual concentration on each of them. This device gives rhythm to the space while offering a free path to visitors. Each project is documented by the designer via texts, sketches or images. The subject is put into perspective by the filmed interview of an expert. The staging of these different points of view corresponds to the catalogue which gives an extended version of them.

Edited by Jeanne Quéheillard and Laurence Salmon, the catalogue “In Progress” by éditions Monografik brings together texts by the philosopher Pascal Chabot and the designer-theoretician Andrea Branzi as well as the projects of the documented designers and the transcribed speeches by the different experts invited at the exhibition. A notebook of images has been assembled by Pierre Leguillon. The graphic design was entrusted to the agency Superscript of Lyon, which has created a specific “In Progress” font for the occasion. This is taken up as an element of the identity of the exhibition.

In preview, a cycle of three conferences is being organised at the Musée des Arts décoratifs, 111 rue de Rivoli in Paris. In Progress: as the utopian aim of design, is progress still topical? On 18 March at 18.30 with Pascal Chabot, philosopher teaching at the Free University of Brussels (ULB). On 25 March at 18.30 with the designers Sebastian Bergne (GB), Normal Studio (FR) and Etienne Mineur (FR). On 1 April at 18.30 with Andrea Branzi, architect, designer and theoretician of radical Italian architecture.

This exhibition is receiving support from the Fondation Hermès, from Pierre Bergé et associés, from « Le Lieu de design », from LaSer, from Texaa® and from the paintings Levis.

Information on Grand-Hornu Images GHI’s Chairman: Claude Durieux

Grand-Hornu Images’s Director: Françoise Foulon

The administrative departments can be contacted on working days from 8.00 a.m. to 4.30 p.m.

Grand-Hornu Images’ Management: 00.32 (0) 65.61.38.85

Address: Grand-Hornu Site

www.grand-hornu-images.be

Opening hours: everyday from 10.00 a.m. to 6.00 p.m. (except Mondays).

Entrance fee: – combined ticket for Grand-Hornu site/MAC’S/ Grand-Hornu Images: €6 – Group rate (minimum 15 pers.): €4 – School groups: €2 – Free for children under six.

Guided tours (on reservation) of the exhibitions and/or the historical site (French/Dutch/German/English).

Audioguide to discover the historical site (French/Dutch/German/English/Italian/Spanish): €2

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