About *Design* Sixth Edition Coming Up
Next week the PCA Community will talk about using design for change. The event, which will be the 6th Edition of PCA’s About *Design*, is inviting students, faculty and staff, to participate in 5 days of talks and workshops about design, with professionals in the fields of Communication Design, Design for Social Impact, Fashion Design, Interior design and Photography.
The public is invited to attend the various talks and workshops, including the PCA Talk with alumna Randi Barry, who will share her vision and experience of sustainable design, and the importance of taking responsibility.
To close the event, the PCA design programs will hold a final exhibition in the school gallery
March 15, 2024
PCA Gallery | from 18:00
Overview
Sustainable Fashion Design
Randi Barry, an alumna of Paris College of Art and a fashion designer, holds a double bachelor’s degree in Graphic Design and Fine Art. Randi’s Spring/Summer 2024 collection, ‘Summer on the Seine,’ is more than just a collection; it’s a tribute to the collective efforts to clean up the Seine River, aligning with the anticipation of the 2024 Summer Olympics. Sustainability is the heartbeat of Randi’s designs, emphasizing a commitment to a living wage for the predominantly female garment workers shaping the industry. Randi’s impact has gained global recognition, with features in prestigious publications such as Vogue, Elle, and Harper’s Bazaar.
Her story has also graced the pages of her hometown magazine in the Comox Valley, BC, Canada, ‘Trio Mag.’
Randi will share her experience with our PCA community and will go deeper into explaining her vision on sustainable design and the importance of taking responsibility.
March 11, 2024 | 13:00-14:00
PCA Talk | PCA Gallery
Do we want to live in a world where robots are writing poetry while people are working as machines?
The fashion industry, valued at $1.7 trillion, stands as one of the largest contributors to environmental degradation, second only to the fossil fuel sector in terms of pollution. Amidst the urgent challenges caused by climate change to ensure a sustainable future, millions of people are presently enduring intolerable living conditions as a consequence of our unsustainable lifestyle. During this talk, we will discuss how we can envisage a future in which fashion and design continue to thrive but no longer at the cost of our environment or human lives.
Louise Xin: Born in China, raised in Sweden, and relocated to Paris in 2023, Louise Xin is an award–winning fashion designer and artist. Passionate about sustainability, Xin ventured into humanitarian work, dedicating her 2021 debut fashion show to human rights, which went viral and gained global recognition. Xin was selected as a Sakharov fellow by the European Parliament and made history in March 2023, hosting the first fashion show inside the Parliament to raise awareness about forced labor. Her work has been featured in over 100 magazines internationally such as ELLE, Vanity Fair, Harper’s Bazaar, and Vogue. She has given speeches for TEDx, UN, Spotify, as well as exhibitions in art galleries and museums.
March 11, 2024 | 18:00-19:00
Talk | PCA Gallery
Practicable Studio. Beyond User-Centric Design
Today’s design field is saturated with the notion of “use”, “User-centric design,” “user experience (UX)” and “user interface (UI)”. However, we don’t give enough thought to the issues at stake in this fairly recent over-presence. What relationship to things does the word “use” refer to? What aspects of things are involved, and which are neglected? Praticable is a French studio that designs digital interfaces, based on the idea that aiming for an entirely usable world is a narrow and unsatisfactory perspective. “Practicable” refers to an alternative type of activity to “use,” which requires things to be designed in order to be practicable. That’s what we do, basing ourselves on the philosophies of Pierre-Damien Huyghe, Bernard Stiegler but also the theoretical and practical productions of makers such as Aaron Swartz or the well-known designer Jean Prouvé. Sharing some of the studio’s productions, our talk will illustrate the critical and positive approach to design that results from this alternative.
March 12, 2024 | 13:00-14:00
Talk | PCA Gallery
Traversées du Vivant: Designing for the Real World
How does our shared history of living beings nourish our creativity, knowledge, and interactions, allowing us to rethink our daily lives and connections to the world around us? Traversée du vivant, a winner of the “Partage ton grand Paris” call for projects by the Société du Grand Paris and Grand Paris Express, takes root in a desire to unite around the questions of living beings. At the heart of Silvia Dore’s concerns about designing for the real world, her project, conceived at Stereo-Buro, highlights the biodiversity of the city of Issy-Les-Moulineaux, its richness, and the evolution of the geographic, historical, and human crossings of plants. The project aims to deploy a visual investigation of the living signs of the environment to relearn how to observe its ecosystem, understand it, and re-enchant everyday life. Traversée du vivant is above all a relational design project, where the game becomes a tool for lively debates and discoveries.
Silvia Dore, graphic designer and art director, collaborates on interdisciplinary projects at the intersection of graphic design and architecture. She focuses on creating collective dialogues across design, visual communication, signage, art edition, and press. Silvia serves as the coordinator for the Master’s program in “Social and Ethical Design” at Campus Fonderie de l’Image. As president of the Alliance France Design (AFD) and a member of the Federation of Exhibition Designers (XPO), she showcases her commitment to the designer’s profession and societal engagement.
@silviadore.recherche
March 12, 2024 | 17:00-18:00
Talk | PCA Gallery
Re-use / Transform / Renovate
Septembre is a Paris-based international studio specializing in architecture and urban strategies. The three partners (Memia Belkaid, Sami Aloulou and Lina Lagerstrom) draw from backgrounds in Sweden and North Africa. The diversity of their projects lies in the desire to examine new places, to merge into a given context, to assume specific constraints and exploit them to enhance spatial qualities. The studio focuses on exploring new ways to design and build cities, prioritizing the repurposing or transformation of existing buildings and the use of common/shared spaces, as well as new ecological building materials and construction methods.
Septembre’s talk will focus on 4 of their projects of various scales and typologies, from the transformation of a former factory into a versatile space for contemporary arts, to social housing and multi-program buildings including common areas such as shared workshop spaces, rooftop community gardens and places for different generations to meet. The studio is presently overseeing the renovation of the new PCA campus, actively contributing to imagining and crafting the best environment for an Art and Design school today.
March 13, 2024 | 17:00-18:00
Talk | PCA Gallery
Creating Coexistence by Rewilding Artifacts
In this hands-on workshop we will delve into the transformative process of ‘rewilding’, a return to a more natural, wild state, which questions human control and over-cultivation of nature. Fostering ecological critical thinking, life-centered design and coexistence, we will explore processes of ‘nature reclaiming’, that are inherent to natural processes and evolving ecosystems.
Students will be invited to ‘rewild’ a selection of traditional furniture pieces, within the school courtyard (weather permitting). Using a combination of foraged objects and other materials, such as rope, earth, sand, leaves, branches, etc, students will first create their ‘toolbox’. Through processes of transformation, deconstruction, interweaving, they will craft an alternative experience, blurring the boundaries between the built environment and the natural world.
Ana Zatezalo is an architect and academic with Master’s degrees from ENSA Paris-Malaquais, Columbia University and HEC Paris. Founding partner of Ingenious Architects and Animalesque, and visiting professor and researcher at the Architectural Association, London, TU Berlin and TU Braunschweig.
To participate, please sign-up by email at [email protected]
March 14, 2024 | 14:00-18:00
Workshop | PCA Gallery
Matter for Matter, Collectively Envisioned
This carte blanche is part of The Future Of Materialism, a think-tank and research-action program that is driven by the endeavor to change the way our future is composed. Supported by the NGO Epicerie Universelle.
We initiate a cross-cultural exchange and dialogue around matter. A call to attention and a call to action at once. At the intersection of design, innovation, and culture, find the driving voices, hands, and minds to make a change. With a deep-rooted consciousness for ecological, social, and commercial values, we strive to reconsider the way things are produced, tackling the core emergencies of our days and the ones to come, as well as redefining how our future capital will be composed. We strongly believe that a change in the way we perceive value, how (and why) we create and collaborate is an indispensable requirement to maintain (or regain) a vivid culture.
Astan Konaté explores the question of the future of business and its transformative and cultural impact.
She envisions matter and making as a drive for innovation and radical change. Together with Fosca Tóth, they initiated The Future Of Materialism in 2016, motivated by the pursuit of reshaping the fabric of our future.
Inès Bressand is a designer and one of the creative minds we invite to work on the question of the materialization of our future.
To participate, please sign-up by email at [email protected]
March 15, 2024 | 13:00-17:00
Workshop | Gallery