Villa Albertine
5/15/24 | 6pm–8pm | 972 Fifth Avenue
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Oui Design! Kick-off Panel Discussion
Join Villa Albertine for a panel discussion and champagne toast to celebrate the start of Oui Design! The panel will be moderated by design historian and educator Alexa Griffith Winton, in conversation with French designer Noé Duchaufour-Lawrance; current Villa Albertine craft and design resident Jean-Marc Bullet; and New York based multidisciplinary artist Terumi Saito. Together, they will explore the relationship a designer can build with a territory, looking at how they each engage with the specificities of a cultural, social, and natural context, ranging from resources to the traditional know-how, the communities and the spiritual beliefs that characterize it.
About the Speakers:
Alexa Griffith Winton is a design historian and writer specializing in the visual and material culture of the last century. Her research engages issues of craft in the industrial and computer ages, the role of technology in modern domestic design, and the theorization of the domestic interior. She is currently Manager, Content + Curriculum at Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, where she co-curated with Susan Brown the exhibition « A Dark, A Light, A Bright: The Designs of Dorothy Liebes » in 2023.
Noé Duchaufour-Lawrance is a multidisciplinary French designer, well known for his sensitive attention to materials and details, as well as for the refinement of his organic forms. The duality between artistic vision and meticulous rigour, nature and the city, functionality and emotion flows seamlessly through his projects, whether in interior architecture or in the design of furniture or objects, but also tailor-made for private clients or cultural institutions such as the Villa Medici. In order to reconnect with nature and weave a sensitive link between man and his environment, he chose to move to Lisbon in 2017. From this immersion was born the Made in Situ project, which explores, through the prism of the designer’s eyes, a variety of territories, geological, artisanal, economic and cultural. A travel diary that can only be extended, in France or elsewhere.
Jean-Marc Bullet is a French industrial design-artist based in Martinique, where he teaches design at the Campus Caraïbéen des Arts. Just graduated from the ENSCI- Les Ateliers, École Nationale Supérieure de Création Industrielle in Paris, he founded the agency Bullet&Associés in 2012. Interested in the link between his Afro-Caribbean identity and his craft, he researches the ways in which objects can be understood as an expression of the social bonds between humans and their environment. He will be in New York until June to take part in the 2024 Villa Albertine Residency, presented in partnership with Industry City + WantedDesign and ENSCI- Les Ateliers, and supported by the Bettencourt Schueller Foundation. His research project is focused on building a dialogue with NYC designers from the African diaspora around the meaning of black design, providing him with the source material for a podcast series on the links between cultural heritage, personal history, and design practices.
Terumi Saito is a Japanese artist and designer primarily working in fiber art and sculpture. Saito is best known for her backstrap weaving sculptures, in which her approach combines traditional and ancient backstrap weaving techniques, the use of natural dyes, fibers, and clay, and a meticulous, labor-intensive weaving process. Backstrap weaving is one of the earliest weaving techniques, and it has a rich history in Asia and Central and South America. Saito’s artistic endeavors are centered on a dual mission: preserving endangered traditional techniques and shedding new light on them through a contemporary lens. She seeks to bridge the gap between contemporary art and traditional crafts, challenging the conventional perception that fiber arts are relegated to the sidelines of contemporary art. Saito earned her BFA in Graphic Design from Tama Art University in Tokyo, Japan, and her MFA in Textiles from Parsons School of Design in New York. Saito has been a resident artist, including the Museum of Arts and Design (Upcoming), Houston Center for Contemporary Craft, Vermont Studio Center, and Arquetopia International Artist Residency in Urubamba, Peru.
