10ºN/10ºS Design Exchange
Ribbons, Fiona Rutherford
10ºN/10ºS Design Exchange
The Sage Gateshead until 25 October
La Cité du Design St. Etienne 4 December - 4 January 2009
Reviewed by Sarah Brownlee
A gang of French designers travelled over to Gateshead this weekend to attend the launch of a fascinating exhibition, the result of a unique ‘design exchange’ which saw them team up with a select group of designer makers from the north east of England.
Rather like an old-fashioned French school exchange, but without the adolescent angst and embarrassment, four individual designers from the Rhône Alpes region who belong to the Saint Etienne-based group Collectif Designers+ were paired with four members of the Designed & Made collective, from Newcastle.
The fruits of this collaboration, which began in November 2008 when the designers were first introduced to each other in Saint Etienne, are currently on show at The Sage Gateshead before moving over to La Cité du Design St. Etienne in December.
Exhibition curator Charlie Arnold, who has lived in France for five years now, was the main instigator of the ‘design exchange’. ‘I realised there were so many similarities between the two design groups,’ Arnold explains. ‘Each of them is made up of individual designers but sometimes they exhibit together. And of course there are lots of parallels between Saint Etienne and Newcastle/Gateshead. Both cities generated a lot wealth via the coal industry and both have recently undergone substantial cultural regeneration following the collapse of these industries.’
Arnold carefully selected the contributing designers only to pair them off quite randomly to make for more interesting results. And so a glass maker, Joanne Mitchell, was matched with a product designer, Sandra Villet. A ceramist, Fiona Thompson, met with stylist and design consultant Fabienne Chassin, and so on.
One of the most successful pairings is undoubtedly textile artist Fiona Rutherford and industrial designer Philippe Moine. They were flung together with absolutely nothing in common but settled for a theme that they could both relate to: ribbon making. ‘Saint Etienne is famous for its ribbon weaving and I liked the idea of choosing something that was specific to the area and that we could both understand and connect with,’ says Rutherford. Moine’s initial response to the theme was a twisted structure made out of delicate strips of oak veneer while Rutherford came up with a board of sample ribbons partly inspired by the arrangement of woodworking tools at Moine’s workshop. These are exhibited together with their final designs, another sculptural form by Moine, made using rapid prototyping technology, and three colourful long woven ribbons by Rutherford, echoing the sinuous nature of Moine’s work.
Nick James and Florian Méry were another stand-out partnership having struck upon the concept of ‘value’ for their project. Their final designs include beautifully crafted boxes filled with a range of materials and unlikely objects that convey the theme of love and a wooden family tree fitted with test tubes for storing precious family mementos.
http://designexchange.wordpress.com
www.tendegrees.org.uk
