THE GRADUATE(S) CURATED BY LIDEWIJ EDELKOORT AT CARPENTERS WORKSHOP GALLERY PARIS

By Crash redaction

What about embarking on an experimental journey through the kingdom of materials and production methods with an emerging generation of designers? Until January 13th, in Paris, Carpenters Workshop Gallery’s collaboration with design curator Lidewij Edelkoort highlights young talent gathered from Europe’s best design schools.

Selected pieces by the renowned trend forecaster focus on the shift in approaching materials, attempting to formulate a final selection that defines a new organic design language which observes, Edelkoort comments, how “a fresh generation of designers is investigating their identity and their roots – sometimes literally going back in history to uncover authenticity and primal instincts. They create hybrids between technology and touch, innovating materials, forging form and conceptualizing rituals for a humbler lifestyle fit for our ever-evolving times.”

Exhibition view courtesy of Carpenters Workshop Gallery

Alternatives to mass production are presented with pieces like the ones by Thomas Ballouhey’s “Ways of Altering” made with cardboard, polystyrene, rubber bands, epoxy and sand and more opening up “unexplored terrain”. Other alternatives exult and sing out the prime properties of one material like Anton Hendrik Denys’s “A Stool Experiment » made of polished stainless steel. Another interesting approach focuses on making use of the unused with Kathrine Barbro Bendixen venturing into giving “second life” to the intestines of a cow. “Inside Out” is a man-made lamp with an animal-made material and shape coming from cleaned, inflated intestines from a single cow, it is described. “We already value the milk, meat, skin and tongue of a cow. But what about the intestines?”, the designer asks. Indeed, what about them?

Exhibition view courtesy of Carpenters Workshop Gallery

The exhibition will unveil works from ECAL (Switzerland), Royal College of Art (United Kingdom), École Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs (France), Royal Danish Design Academy (Denmark), LUCA School of Arts (Belgium) and Design Academy Eindhoven (the Netherlands).

Carpenters Workshop Gallery

54 rue de la Verrerie – 75004 Paris

Until January 13^rd

http://carpentersworkshopgallery.com/

Written by Stephanie Bui.