Landscapes of Design, Women at the Heart of Domaine de Boisbuchet
Frac Centre-Val de Loire, Orléans
February 04 – July 31, 2022

Frac Centre-Val de Loire presents a new exhibition dedicated to women designers. Landscapes of Design is conceived around a selection of works from Domaine de Boisbuchet‘s exceptional collections. More than a hundred pieces, spanning from furniture to fashion, question the main principles of design: identification, procedures, boundaries… The exhibition brings together works by twentieth-century female pioneers and international contemporary designers, revealing new, more collaborative and nature-oriented approaches to design.

In 1989, Domaine de Boisbuchet, a centre for study and innovation of design, was created in the heart of the Charente. This research and mediation institute brings together each year professionals and amateurs from all over the world to experiment with applied design in all its forms. Far away from the hustle and bustle of the city, in an architectural park amidst the fields, forests, and waters of the hilly landscape – a nature that people have helped to shape and that serves as both a source of inspiration and an open-air laboratory.

The people who lead or participate in these workshops are always changing, as are the topics; and yet it has become apparent over the last 30 years that a large majority of women is taking up the challenges of holistic design that this place invites. It is indeed a majority of women who now study and teach in the various disciplines of design around the world.

The engines of today’s innovation are driven as much by women as by men, but often all that remains of this work’s success is a body that trades under the lords of creation. Yet it is precisely the practice of applied design that is characterized by the fact that it only leads to relevant results when different competencies work together.

Looking at nature as a universal source of inspiration and at the landscape that substantially shapes Boisbuchet‘s activities, these works gather around themes that are particularly relevant today. In its compilation of finished products and experiments documenting the work process, the exhibition at the same time reveals a wide range of procedures with which women designers proceed: industrial, craft and artistic productions, sociological, ecological and artistic investigations, analytical and intuitive methods.

more. www.frac-centre.fr