Awards
Yassine Ben Abdallah
⇨ MÉMOIRES DE PLANTATION
The history and culture of the oppressed are rarely embodied by material objects. Mémoires de plantation looks over the disappearance of archival materials objects that belonged to the enslaved and indentured laborers of the sugar plantations in Reunion Island. The cultural identity of the former French colony has been shaped by the monoculture of sugarcane. However, the only objects left of this history belonged to the white masters. Most of the material culture of the “othered” communities have disappeared, or have been made to disappear.Sugar, the raw material of plantation, here becomes the narrator of this absence. In the historical plantation estate of Villèle lies the Plantation Museum of Reunion Island, where only the master’s artifacts bear witness to the history of the sugar colony.
How can the stories of the enslaved and indentured laborers be told when there is no object testifying to their existence or experience? Through the concept of Creole museography, Ben Abdallah’s work calls for an intervention that subverts the current curatorial approach of the institution. Taking place in the sacred space of the museum, his project creates a confrontational space where ephemeral machetes made of sugar oppose the master’s artifacts, in dialogue with the slaves’ missing artifacts.
The Grand Prix du Jury Design Parade Hyères consists of:
- A one-year research residency at Sèvres – Manufacture et Musée nationaux.
- A one-year research and production residency at the Cirva (International Glass and Visual Arts Research Centre) in Marseille, to create a vase. This vase will be produced in triplicate: one for the Cirva collection, one for the permanent collection at the villa Noailles and one for the designer.
- The participation at the competition as jury member and a personal exhibition at the villa Noailles during Design Parade 18, in summer 2024.
Materra-Mantang :
Lucien Dumas & Lou Poko Savadogo
As the leading maker of outdoor furniture, Tectona supports the Design Parade Hyères festival with the creation of the Tectona Design Parade Prize in 2023. Within the framework of this partnership, ten designer candidates will be invited to imagine a stackable dining chair on the theme “A break under the sun”. The only technical constraint: use metal or a natural rot-proof material. The candidates will each make a model of their proposal, scale 1:1. The ten models will be exhibited at the Villa Noailles from 23 June to 3 September 2023.
The jury, guided by the technical advice of Jean-Yves Grandfils, head of the Tectona workshop and Meilleur Ouvrier de France, will choose the winner who will receive 5,000 euros.
The Tectona Design Parade Award is a new page in the history of Tectona’s involvement in French cultural creation and offers garden furniture design the recognition it so richly deserves.
Yassine Ben Abdallah
⇨ MÉMOIRES DE PLANTATION
The history and culture of the oppressed are rarely embodied by material objects. Mémoires de plantation looks over the disappearance of archival materials objects that belonged to the enslaved and indentured laborers of the sugar plantations in Reunion Island. The cultural identity of the former French colony has been shaped by the monoculture of sugarcane. However, the only objects left of this history belonged to the white masters. Most of the material culture of the “othered” communities have disappeared, or have been made to disappear.Sugar, the raw material of plantation, here becomes the narrator of this absence. In the historical plantation estate of Villèle lies the Plantation Museum of Reunion Island, where only the master’s artifacts bear witness to the history of the sugar colony.
How can the stories of the enslaved and indentured laborers be told when there is no object testifying to their existence or experience? Through the concept of Creole museography, Ben Abdallah’s work calls for an intervention that subverts the current curatorial approach of the institution. Taking place in the sacred space of the museum, his project creates a confrontational space where ephemeral machetes made of sugar oppose the master’s artifacts, in dialogue with the slaves’ missing artifacts.
Materra-Mantang :
Lucien Dumas & Lou Poko Savadogo
Au dixième
As architects and craftspeople, we believe there are no boundaries of scale, use or form between a building and a piece of furniture.
In our practice, where manufacturing is no longer separated from designing, a constructive detail can become the starting point for a more global project. We consider furniture pieces as architectural elements; furniture is made, structured, assembled, just as a building would be designed.
This collection is the fruit of research into wood joining through weaving. The furniture is made of small pieces of wood held together by a paper rope. The chest of drawers and the dresser respond to each other in form and colour, both borrowing various construction principles from architecture: the hood mould as a handle, the clapboard for the drawers, the charred wood (the Japanese technique of Shou Sugi Ban used for façades and roofs) for the finish. Through the use of natural materials and traditional techniques, the collection is part of a timeless design.
Dotations :
Carmignac Foundation, established on the island of Porquerolles since 2018 through the Villa Carmignac dedicated to contemporary art, strengthen its links with the villa Noailles by creating the Fondation Carmignac endowment. One of the winners of the object design (Hyères) or interior architecture competition (Toulon), chosen in agreement with the Carmignac Foundation and the members of the juries, will be invited during a residency to create an object in line with the philosophy of the place.