Design Parade – villa Noailles

Jerszy Seymour and his team stayed over two weeks at the villa Noailles in Hyères this summer to prepare “Being There”, an exhibition taking place in the villa’s swimming pool and squash room.

Jerzsy Seymour designs products and experiments, intelligently choosing to work in the most generalist of all production fields, the profession of designer, the perfect context for ideas and objects. The installations proposed always target the pulling apart of the very idea of specific know-how, of perfection, of the unreachable. A vision of the world is ringing it out again and he  with the sudio tries to transcribe it in his proposals to manufacturers much like when the designer in his industrial projects talks about the possibility of “amatorat”, and of the way the structures to be organized can shift traditional cleavages. Jerszy Seymour is demonstrating that with design as creating life situations, experiencing, prototyping and producig projects in oder to make products, there is no paradoxe either no mistranslation but a vision of what could be life. (C.Geel/ curator)

They left Berlin were the studio’s workshop is located with a van and started gathering along the way items for their project, for the creation of their “situation” in Hyères. Trees, plastic and other unexpected objects mixed with some of Jerszy industrial projects found their way to this installation :

The result is a stunning-and wet!-experience in the swimming pool and exhilarating -and hot!- one in the squash.

Jerszy’ words are :

“In ‘Being There’, we – the studio- leave berlin in a van loaded with the elements of the workshop : tools, materials, archive and reflections on a
road trip to villa Noailles.
On arriving and looking at the world with a neccessary child like, absurd view as if just born or just arrived and with the intention to subvert order, change perspective and to break through the outercrust of meaning to its hot core, Jerszy Seymour Design Workshop creates its life situation from simple and locally available materials.”

In the swimming pool

River Workshop
A flowing river of past present and future, water to cool the feet, and the central workshop furniture collaged together from found materials and the road trip van, evidence of the workshop, prototypes, objects tests and diagrams are scattered around in the water or above on plinth of found objects. The walls are covered with diagrams of past present and future activity.

Zig-zag Moulinex’ hair-dryers

Scum Lamp (kreo), chairs prototypes (studio) , Easy Chair (Magis) etc…

In the squash

Jeu de Paume
Created by the hot wax erotic production technique of the amateur using the hand as the ultimate tool. The Jeu de Paume is both a play and meeting place that allows all to participate. The proposal for their revolution is the creation of excitement.”

In the squash the visitors can have a try splashing Jerszy’s metled plastic on the walls !

On Saturday the 4th, Jerszy was interviewed by Michèle Champenois, ex-former editor in chief of Le Monde 2. Michèle helped us have a better understanding of the designer’s various projects which led to his “coalition of amateur”, as demonstrated earlier this year at the MAK in Vienna and at the MUDAM, Luxembourg.

And to finish…

…the view from the Galerie d’Actualité (where Michel Charlot’s exhibit is-more soon !) on the swimming pool…

But we more than encourage you to come and live these situations yourselves… You have untill september 20th to come by !

Biography : Born in Berlin in 1968, Jerszy Seymour  studied engineering at South Bank Polytechnic 1987 -1990 and industrial design at the Royal College of Art 1991 – 1993. Whilst living in Milan he started his own experimental projects including ’House in a Box’ in 2002, ’Scum’ in 2003 – and the clothing concept ‘Tape’ in 2003. These and other on going experimental and conceptual projects form the central thrust of his work. In parallel he has also designed for companies including Magis, Vitra, Kreo, Moulinex, SFR and IDEE.
In 2004 Jerszy returned to Berlin where he currently works and lives. His work is held in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the ‘Fonds National d’Art Contemporain’ France and the  Mudam ,Luxembourg. In 2005 he created the Brussels Brain installation and in 2007 the project Living Systems ( “My Home” exhibition – Vitra Design Museum). In 2008 he realized the installation “First Supper” for the MAK in Vienna. He has taught at the Royal College of Art in London, the Domus Academy in Milan, the ECAL in Lausanne, the HfG in Karlsruhe and the Vitra Design Workshops in France. Currently he holds a guest-professorship at the HBK Saar.

Members of the studio are :

Jerszy Seymour
Tanja Seiner
Clemence Seilles
Travis Broussard
Dominik Hehl
Erasmus Scherjon
Jolina Streblau
With
Louise Thiercelin
Nicolas Kunysz