Biennale
Internationale
Design
Saint-Étienne
Parliament of Silence
By the Universitatea de Artă și Design din Cluj-Napoca & Ecole supérieure d’art et design de Saint-Etienne
Experience17 may - 22 mayEurofabrique
Eurofabrique is a project of the Rmn - Grand Palais, the École des Arts Décoratifs and the ANdEA - Association nationale des écoles supérieures d'art.
From 8 to 11 February 2022, 400 students from French and European art schools (art, design, cinema, theatre and music) were invited to come together to question and invent forms that carry the continent they inhabit.
- Today, what does it mean to be European?
- How can we make Europe a desirable environment and horizon?
- How can it be connected to the rest of the world, through which principles, links and attachments?
- And if Europe is a project, how can it be reenchanted?
These were the questions at the heart of a Grand Palais Éphémère transformed into a major European arts college: not only a factory, but also a laboratory and an assembly located in the 10,000 m² of the Grand Palais Éphémère, as one inhabits a geography.
To explore these issues, students from each of the French schools present at EuroFabrique worked in partnership with students from a European art school, whom they invited to design a joint project. Thirty-five French and European art schools thus participated in EuroFabrique, along with a 36th school imagined for the occasion and which brought together students and artists in exile, in connection with the Programme d'Aide d'Urgence aux Scientifiques et artistes en Exil, PAUSE.
A common Project
The ambition of the project led by the Ecole supérieure d'art et design de Saint-Etienne, France (Esadse) and the Universitatea de Artă și Design din Cluj-Napoca, Romania (UAD) was to simulate in a sensory way: polyphonic or silent, - the power games within the big European institutions.
During the online working sessions between the French and the Romanian teams in 2021 and during a workshop in Cluj in January 2022, a performative scenographic device representing the three major institutions was imagined.Through a volume construction game, visitors can build concepts for the future of the European Union.
Here, each sculpture is equivalent to a set of concepts issued and assembled by an individual or a group. These are composed of different shapes representing an action (slow down, take care of...) each with a colour representing a field of study (ecology, culture....).
When visiting the parliamentary ground, the user is invited to observe the sculptures on site and thus try to understand the previous debates that took place in this space. With the help of a form, they can formulate their own ideas and priorities in Europe. In this way, he can decide to assemble his pieces with other sculptures already present on site or choose to start a new assembly. The site is intended to be symbolic and performative, while the user creates his sculpture in a playful way, the mediator who accompanies him encourages him to formulate ideas when he assembles two concepts together. In this way, the builder begins to express a set of political values and principles of his own through the game. The political word is democratised, each individual feeling legitimate to give their voice.
EuroFabrique is labelled French Presidency of the Council of the European Union 2022.
