Futur Archaïque. Design confronts its roots at Mudac

Although its title juxtaposes the future with our human origins, the exhibition Futur archaïque exposes some very contemporary concerns. There is a widely shared idea that the pace of technological developments is accelera- ting, and that their impact is being increasingly imposed upon us in our everyday personal, professional and social lives. Technical progress is seen as invasive and it arouses a number of anxieties. There is thus an emerging sense of underlying threat, a fear that artificial intelligence could seize power, or even that we, as a world, have lost our bearings.
A sociologist by training, Yves Mirande, the exhibition curator, is a design specialist and journalist. His inspiration for the project came as he noticed a growing tendency for the design world to tackle this feeling. In response, the designers have steered their research in an opposite direction, towards the roots of humanity. They favour organic or raw materials, and forms that flirt with our collective fantasy of the archaic or the primitive. Far from beating a reactionary retreat, however, they have chosen to connect with the very latest contemporary techniques.
They use materials such as animal fleeces, volcanic lava, petrified ceramics, flint, skulls and bones, seeds, natural pigments, carbonised wood, bladders and stomachs, bringing them together with recent technological develop- ments. The knapped flints by Ami Drach & Dov Ganchrow were fitted with 3D-printed sleeves; the wood used in Kaspar Hamacher’s furniture is charred to give it its final shape; grains of wheat are transformed into vessels by Formafantasma while Wieki Somers turns animal skulls into teapots; Julia Lohmann creates lamps from cow sto- machs. Some of these creations even require primitive gestures, such as Simon Hasan’s nutcracker, which involves cracking the nuts with a stone.
For Yves Mirande, this movement reveals the desire to reconnect with our roots, which he believes are “pushed around by modernity”, as well as with contemporary life. Futur archaïque presents around sixty objects by interna- tional designers that address these issues and reflect this sensation facing the human experience in 21st century society.

DESIGNERS
François Azambourg

Ami Drach & Dov Ganchrow

Antoine Boudin

Atelier Van Lieshout

Nacho Carbonell

Laura Couto Rosado

DWA (Alberto Artesani, Frederik De Wachter & Alessandro Costariol)

ECAL/Miloš Ristin


Formafantasma (Simone Farresin, Andrea Trimarchi)

Robotlab (Matthias Gommel, Martina Haitz, Jan Zappe)

Kaspar Hamacher


Simon Hasan 


Studio Hlutager¢in


Valentin Loellmann


Julia Lohmann


Laura Lynn Jansen & Thomas Vailly


Stéphane Margolis


Peter Marigold


Giulio Parini

Pigeon project (Isabel de Lucena, Lauren Alexander, Florian Conradi, Judith de Leeuw, Vitor Peixoto, Ghalia Srakbi, Marco Ugolini, Judith van der Velden, Dirk Vis, Kamiel Vorwerk)
Maaike Roozenburg

Studio Wieki Somers

Jean-Pierre Tortil

Charles Trevelyan

Unfold (Dries Verbruggen, Claire Warnier) avec Barnabé Fillion

Futur Archaïque Design Confronts Its Roots
28 October 2015 – 28 February 2016
 Tuesday-Sunday 11.00-18.00
Open on every public holiday, Mondays included, except on 25 December and 1 January 24 and 31 December : 11.00-16.00 
Free admission on the first Saturday of the month
mudac – musée de design et d’arts appliqués contemporains Place de la Cathédrale 6
CH-1005 Lausanne
 t +41 315 25 30 / f +41 315 25 39
www.mudac.ch / info@mudac.ch