2020 STUDENT AWARD : MEETING WITH ALIX LALUCAA & LISA FAURE

As part of the COAL – Culture & Diversity 2020 Student Award, four student projects have been nominated as finalists for this first edition. Each day, we offer you a meeting with one of the nominated projects.

Alix Lalucaa and Lisa Faure, students in Master 1 Product and Space Design at the Ecole supérieure d’art et de design de Reims, have developed a particular attraction for the material. They experiment with it while learning to develop an artistic language and a sensitive and narrative dimension to the object.

Alix and Lisa share a dreamlike universe that they nourish through drawing, painting and other disciplines of the plastic arts. Their plastic universe deals with societal and environmental issues such as sustainable development, the valorization of materials and local crafts.

Each of them brings its own specificity to the heart of each project. A social vision of the relationship between man and object and an observant approach to the diversity of living things are intertwined.

PROJECT NOMINATED FOR THE COAL – CULTURE & DIVERSITY 2020 STUDENT AWARD : CAIRN PROJECT

Imagining a signage system to promote biodiversity and in particular endangered species is the core of Alix Lalucaa and Lisa Faure’s Cairn Project, developed during two stays in the Ballons des Vosges Regional Nature Park.

Alix Lalucaa and Lisa Faure have created a series of granite sculptures inspired by cairns, in partnership with a local granite company, which fit into the Vosges landscape. In an approach of preservation of the living, they wish to direct the eyes of the visitors towards the little visible elements of nature and to offer them an enriching experience: to inform the visitor on the fragility of the species, the raw resources and the know-how of the territory.

The proportions of each piece allow for the reuse of granite scraps while ensuring their integration into the natural landscape. Alix Lalucaa and Lisa Faure take into account the reproducibility of the sculptures according to the targeted territory by choosing granite, a material extracted from local quarries, resistant to wear and frost. The forms of the sculptures, thought as microarchitectures, play with the balance and fragility of the surrounding vegetation. Each sculpture, associated with a plant and placed near it, takes a different form and finish. Spotted by visitors and hikers, even in winter, their project is anchored on trails where biodiversity is weakened by wild harvesting or trampling.

What is your relationship, as an artist or as a person, to environmental commitment?

Being both in our twenties, we are part of a generation that has known from a young age the importance of ecology in our daily lives. Waste management, water or electricity are some examples. The designer must propose answers to sociological and environmental issues. Ecology is fundamentally linked to the thoughts of today’s designer.

We share the vision of rethinking our relationship to the object, of not only finding alternatives to repair the problems caused by our way of life, but of questioning our very principle of consumption.

How do you imagine the world to come?

We have a relatively optimistic view of the future of our world. Man has always been able to adapt and evolve. We aspire to a world where the relationship between man and object would be less in the act of owning more but rather owning well. Valuing local know-how, short circuits and the resources present in our territories seems to us to be an interesting avenue for the future.

Featured image: © Lalucca/Faure, Ensemble des structures, 2020