Saint-Etienne International Design Biennial
Saint-Etienne International
Design Biennial 2010
Here we are. The Cité du design inaugurates its equipments and its scheduling on the site of Saint-Étienne former arms factory. From now on, the Saint-Étienne School of art and Design is based in the heart of this symbolic place and welcomes its three hundred and fifty students since 5 October.
The Cité du design is displayed in five architectural elements: three renovations and two contemporary constructions designed by the LIN agency and its architects Finn Geipel and Giulia Andi. The building called “la Platine” for instance is a modular space, configured to adapt to our diverse activities: exhibitions, professional encounters, information meetings as well as educational workshops. These new spaces are meant for everybody and we are very pleased to welcome you here. We have been particularly attentive to each group of public (professional, academic, scholastic, familial) through fitted plan to answer everyone’s questions.
The programme of our sites will indeed change according to the seasons especially during spring and summer as well as during autumn and winter to satisfy the different missions of the Cité du design. We will go from pedagogic and economic topics, higher education, research or even forecasting during the autumn to a spring we can already imagine lighter but full of imagination, maybe even playful, and firmly turned towards all kinds of publics.
The 2010 Saint-Étienne International Design Biennial will take over la Platine and its exhibition sites as well as its auditorium and lecture rooms. The biennial will also be present in other sites more east from the former arms factory. The H building presented for the first time in 2008 will host once again the main part of the event and its surface should double to occupy the nearby building. Supported by Saint-Étienne Métropole and the French public establishment of city planning in Saint-Étienne (EPASE), it is such a great creative opportunity to be able to take over those waste lands to make exhibitions.
Elsa Francès, general manager
The theme of the 6th edition of the Saint-Étienne International Design Biennial will be around Teleportation. It will deal with an extreme view of our society, a kind of ideal (or not) that we could yearn for and that could enable us to solve many issues we are faced with, as for the problems related to ecological emergencies or transport demand, as well as resulting from the continual lack of time, that puts our everyday lives under pressure. But
difficulties also stem from the new communication media and technologies
that provide us a kind of ubiquity. Working from home, transferring data and documents to work - that’s all very fine, until the system breaks down, and you suddenly find yourself wishing you could just snap and be there.
Teleportation appears to us as a reasonable dream to make. On the other hand, when such a dream comes true, time will accelerate. Movement will become dematerialized. We may lose our marks, if not our identity.
Different themes may be developed around the subject of teleportation.
Ubiquity. Mobility. The world getting smaller as we travel faster and faster.
Visiting new potential life spaces (under the sea, off the ground, on new planets). Virtuality, making reality double. Time T. Changes in space and time, or on the contrary, the concept of durability, anchorage to the ground and by extension, comfort. Because as Virilio wrote, “To be is in situ, here
and now, hic et nunc. Now, this truth has been questioned by cyberspace, instant information, worldwide availability.”
Physical teleportation may not be real yet but communication tools do enable us to teleport in a way and to mentally travel to any places around the world.
We can ‘be’ anywhere anytime, living in a boundless parallel world that we built. 2010 Biennial intends to explore paths that will tend in their extreme expression to lead to a possible teleportation as dematerialization of movement which appears to be an incredibly revealing notion of our new era.
Constance Rubini, general curator
Design Biennial 2010
Here we are. The Cité du design inaugurates its equipments and its scheduling on the site of Saint-Étienne former arms factory. From now on, the Saint-Étienne School of art and Design is based in the heart of this symbolic place and welcomes its three hundred and fifty students since 5 October.
The Cité du design is displayed in five architectural elements: three renovations and two contemporary constructions designed by the LIN agency and its architects Finn Geipel and Giulia Andi. The building called “la Platine” for instance is a modular space, configured to adapt to our diverse activities: exhibitions, professional encounters, information meetings as well as educational workshops. These new spaces are meant for everybody and we are very pleased to welcome you here. We have been particularly attentive to each group of public (professional, academic, scholastic, familial) through fitted plan to answer everyone’s questions.
The programme of our sites will indeed change according to the seasons especially during spring and summer as well as during autumn and winter to satisfy the different missions of the Cité du design. We will go from pedagogic and economic topics, higher education, research or even forecasting during the autumn to a spring we can already imagine lighter but full of imagination, maybe even playful, and firmly turned towards all kinds of publics.
The 2010 Saint-Étienne International Design Biennial will take over la Platine and its exhibition sites as well as its auditorium and lecture rooms. The biennial will also be present in other sites more east from the former arms factory. The H building presented for the first time in 2008 will host once again the main part of the event and its surface should double to occupy the nearby building. Supported by Saint-Étienne Métropole and the French public establishment of city planning in Saint-Étienne (EPASE), it is such a great creative opportunity to be able to take over those waste lands to make exhibitions.
Elsa Francès, general manager
The theme of the 6th edition of the Saint-Étienne International Design Biennial will be around Teleportation. It will deal with an extreme view of our society, a kind of ideal (or not) that we could yearn for and that could enable us to solve many issues we are faced with, as for the problems related to ecological emergencies or transport demand, as well as resulting from the continual lack of time, that puts our everyday lives under pressure. But
difficulties also stem from the new communication media and technologies
that provide us a kind of ubiquity. Working from home, transferring data and documents to work - that’s all very fine, until the system breaks down, and you suddenly find yourself wishing you could just snap and be there.
Teleportation appears to us as a reasonable dream to make. On the other hand, when such a dream comes true, time will accelerate. Movement will become dematerialized. We may lose our marks, if not our identity.
Different themes may be developed around the subject of teleportation.
Ubiquity. Mobility. The world getting smaller as we travel faster and faster.
Visiting new potential life spaces (under the sea, off the ground, on new planets). Virtuality, making reality double. Time T. Changes in space and time, or on the contrary, the concept of durability, anchorage to the ground and by extension, comfort. Because as Virilio wrote, “To be is in situ, here
and now, hic et nunc. Now, this truth has been questioned by cyberspace, instant information, worldwide availability.”
Physical teleportation may not be real yet but communication tools do enable us to teleport in a way and to mentally travel to any places around the world.
We can ‘be’ anywhere anytime, living in a boundless parallel world that we built. 2010 Biennial intends to explore paths that will tend in their extreme expression to lead to a possible teleportation as dematerialization of movement which appears to be an incredibly revealing notion of our new era.
Constance Rubini, general curator
Visuel de la Biennale 2008
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Since its creation in 1998, the Saint-Étienne International Design Biennial has never stopped to evolve, enrich and organize around a central goal: to democratize design, making it accessible to all audiences through a broad vision of the design profession and its many applications. In 2008, during its ten years history, the Biennial has welcomed 85000 visitors (up 6% compared to 2006 and up 35% compared to 2004) spread over two weeks of opening, of which 15000 were students (up 47% compared to 2006). Media event, the Biennial has also received 270 journalists who came to comment the exhibitions and meet the designers, contractors and representatives of public institutions.
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