S’ASSEOIR, SIÈGE DE LA CONVIVIALITE URBAINE
(FROM 13 OCTOBER 2008 TO 21 JUNE 2009)
Sophie Barbaux and Sebastien Wierinck, landscape artist and designer respectively, suggest creating a life size experiment bearing on urban furniture and the different ways of sitting on it.
During their residency, they will install various pieces of urban furniture in the central way of the CENTQUATRE, with the collusion of the photographer Sebastien Normand. These places for meeting and carrying out experiments, with different styles and uses, and are regularly rearranged as a stage set for observing the interactions with passers-by, residents, the public and the CENTQUATRE team. All the visitors are thus invited to try out the arrangements, have their photos taken on the seat of their choice, and share their feelings. The information thus collected will become the basis for ongoing discussion in meetings with various local representatives and planning professionals, and for studying the site in its city environment.
The artists’ residency will culminate with the design of an original piece of urban furniture that is typical of CENTQUATRE and the production of a prototype.
The project "S’asseoir, siège de la convivialité urbaine et paysagère" is supported by Ironwood Distribution, by INA and the complicity of the Department of Parks and Environment of the city of Paris.
BIOGRAPHIES
SOPHIE BARBAUX (LANDSCAPER / FRANCE)
Born in 1961 in Paris, she lives and works in Paris.
She was trained at the National College of Landscape Art and is keen on the visual arts and contemporary live show - fields in which she has already worked - her projects for gardens naturally call on several disciplines. She took part in the collective adventures of the ephemeral gardens created in 2007 for the International Garden Festival at Chaumont-sur-Loire, the first International Garden Festival at Emo Court in Ireland, and "Chez Parmentier, cabanon potager" designed in 2008 for the Poitou-Charentes CRDP (Regional Centre for Educational Documentation) on the topic of plant journeys. She also creates private gardens and collaborates with the architects Edouard François, Julien Odile and Marie Deroudilhe, and with the landscape artists Armelle Claude, Olivier Damee and Edith Vallet.
SEBASTIEN WIERINCK (DESIGNER / BELGIUM)
www.os00.com
Born in 1975 in Kortrijk (Belgium), he lives and works in Marseille.
He was trained at the Sint-Lukas Art College in Brussels. His approach is part of a movement which goes beyond interior architecture to spill over into an undefined social space, where the object discovers its relation to the user. It means inhabiting a place, but also inhabiting situations. Hence the name of his studio "On-site". He has notably designed a range of public benches made from the flexible tubing often used on urban building sites. His seats have shapes which evolve and adapt to an ever more unstable hybrid and rhizomatous environment. Since 2002, his different projects have been presented in numerous cities throughout the world such as Milan, São Paulo, Brussels, Berlin and Paris (Palais de Tokyo / contemporary design site).
SÉBASTIEN NORMAND (PHOTOGRAPHER / FRANCE)
Born in 1975 in Niort (Deux Sèvres), he lives and works in Paris.
He earned his degree from the ENS-Louis-Lumière in the photography section in 2001, and conducts research into the problems of occupation of spaces and territories. In 2005, a bursary from the Fondation de France took him onto the Spanish motorways for two months to begin a "trayecto ibérico", during which the artist became interested in the Moroccan immigrants who roam the land. In 2008 he showed "Objets trouvés" in the "exhibition train" which celebrated the SNCF's 70th anniversary in twenty French stations.
To watch this animation, check the Flash version of this site.
