Biennale
Internationale
Design
Saint-Étienne
Singulier Plurielles
In the contemporary Africas
Exhibition 6 may - 31 julySingulier Plurielles is an invitation to discover and learn from the design practices used in urban and rural communities in contemporary Africa, a continent where today's ecological and political challenges are pivotal.
The approaches presented in the exhibition have all avoided taking the established pathways, instead following a line that falls somewhere between the tactics of adaptation and a more global strategy of territorial transformation. Visitors will discover new practices that are today sources of inspiration, fuel for debate or an encouragement to project into the future of human societies.
These practices are all about improving quality of life for as many people as possible and most of them call upon the new technologies (digital and telecom). They all propose singular, innovative and hybrid uses and practices that change:
• agricultural and forestry practices,
• the way we see shared and public spaces,
• health policies,
• mobility practices,
• manufacturing methods, but also ways of transmitting knowledge, cooking or playing
Designers, inventors, "makers", researchers: the protagonists under the spotlight here come from a variety of backgrounds, but they all share a certain approach to what design means.
Through their projects, they are shaping new networks of action, inventing objects, spaces and services that are both anchored in the local African contexts and open to the needs of the wider world.
10 projects that reflect the diversity of the approaches on show:
• Maps that overturn the monolithic perception of Africa
• A de-standardised car linked to the activities (social integration, waste sorting centre, etc.) that develop a
local territory
• An eHealth scheme that facilitates medical care
• Low-tech handwash stations developed to help cope with the pandemic
• Contemporary furniture designed with a network of craftspeople and locally sourced materials
• A breeze block with a bifurcation in its shape and in its use
• An integrated agro-ecological production centre
• A television programme that is helping to reinstate the value of agricultural work
• An artistic rehabilitation of Vodoo public places
• Culture banks to preserve and transmit heritage
Gradually, visitors become aware that these approaches, sovereign and emancipating, are bringing to the fore new trans-African narratives.
Franck Houndégla, scenographer, designer and architectural researcher, designs exhibition, museums and shows, as well as redesigning public spaces and heritage sites in France and abroad. He is also a writer of fiction and research articles, he teaches design and scenography at the École Supérieure des Beaux-arts in Bordeaux and is currently in the research stage a PhD the development of popular architecture in African cities at the IPRAUS (Institut Parisien de Recherche: architecture, urban design, society), which is part of the École Nationale Supérieure d’Architecture Paris-Belleville.
