In the exhibition Mechanical Marvels, design students from ECAL/University of Art and Design Lausanne team up with master artisans from the Swiss town of Sainte-Croix to create fascinating mechanical installations
Artisan at work ©ECAL Jasmine Deporta
• The results of a vibrant collaboration between design students from ECAL and artisans in the Swiss town of Sainte-Croix
• Five interactive installations based on mechanical know-how illustrate the different local skills recently acknowledged by UNESCO as intangible cultural heritage of humanity
• An immersive experience in which visitors can themselves operate the different automata
This April at Homo Faber Event 2022 visitors will be immersed in a mechanical world in the exhibition Mechanical Marvels, which presents the fruits of a vibrant collaboration between Association Mec-Art (Pour la Mécanique d’Art) and ECAL/University of Art and Design Lausanne.
For a number of years, the Master of Advanced Studies in Design for Luxury & Craftsmanship course at ECAL has enabled its students to work in close collaboration with prestigious maisons to further their design education in areas of excellence including fine watchmaking, tableware, fashion, gastronomy and the métiers d’art, or to learn particular techniques with regards to the use of noble materials and craftsmanship.
The university’s recent partnership with Association Mec-Art gave students the opportunity to work alongside craftsmen and women established in Sainte-Croix. The town, in the Franco-Swiss Jura, is home to the specialisations involved in the creation of art mechanics. Here, artisans perpetuate their time-honoured expertise in the mechanical arts, including music boxes and automata – traditions recently added to UNESCO’s List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.
The ambitious project deriving from this collaboration, created and imagined by ECAL students, and made by Mec-Art artisans, illustrates the know-how that has been passed down from generation to generation and that is still found in the workshops, studios and manufacturers of Sainte-Croix today.
Five mechanical installations derived from this project form the exhibition Mechanical Marvels at Homo Faber Event. Curated by Nicolas Le Moigne, head of the programme at ECAL, with British expert Simon Kidston, the exhibition invites visitors into an immersive space which plays with lights, materials and transparency, created by Swiss designer Charlotte Therre. Fully interactive, the exhibition allows visitors to operate the mechanical masterpieces by winding a crank, bringing life to the various automata. In doing so, they will be surprised and delighted by the very human, very warm nature of these kinetic artworks, and the poetic and fantastical world they create.
“This ambitious project is a real source of exchange and collaboration: the artisans share their expertise and know-how with the students, while the students challenge the artisans with their innovative and often surprising creative ideas.” – Nicolas Le Moigne
“I am convinced that the visitor will emerge from Mechanical Marvels knowing that there is a bright future for craftsmanship in all of its forms. This exhibition shows how the deep knowledge and long-held traditions of artisans in Sainte-Croix are passed down to a new generation.” – Simon Kidston
Mechanical Marvels is set in the Photography Hall at Fondazione Giorgio Cini. It is one of 15 exhibitions that comprise Homo Faber Event 2022, organised by the Michelangelo Foundation.
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Homo Faber Event
Crafting a more human future
Fondazione Giorgio Cini, San Giorgio Maggiore, Venice
Organised by the Michelangelo Foundation for Creativity and Craftsmanship, the Homo Faber Event is an international exhibition that champions artisanal talent, showcasing an impressive variety of materials, techniques and skills through live demonstrations, immersive digital experiences and imaginative displays of handcrafted creations. From functional everyday objects to outstanding decorative pieces, this edition highlights craft’s role in creating a more sustainable and inclusive future. The event offers a rare chance to admire the prestigious work of a selection of Japan’s National Living Treasures and to experience craft and its connections to the arts and to the design world. Visitors can join guided tours of the 15 exhibition spaces led by passionate students participating in the Young Ambassadors Programme. Imagined by a team of world-renowned curators and designers, the scenographic event transforms the magnificent spaces of the Fondazione Giorgio Cini, located on San Giorgio Maggiore Island in the heart of the Venetian lagoon. On top of the event, the Homo Faber in Città project gives visitors a chance to experience craftsmanship across Venice through tailor-made itineraries. homofaber.com
The Michelangelo Foundation for Creativity and Craftsmanship is a non-profit institution based in Geneva, Switzerland, which champions contemporary craftspeople worldwide with the aim of promoting a more human, inclusive and sustainable future. The Foundation seeks to highlight the connections between craft, the wider arts and the design world. Its mission is to both celebrate and preserve craftsmanship and its diversity of makers, materials and techniques, by increasing craft’s everyday recognition and its viability as a professional path for the next generations. From engaging educational programmes such as the Summer Schools, to its signature digital project the Homo Faber Guide and the international exhibition Homo Faber Event, the Foundation is fostering a cultural movement centred on master artisans and rising stars. michelangelofoundation.org
ECAL/University of Art and Design Lausanne
Featuring regularly among the world’s top ten universities of art and design (fifth in the Dezeen Hot List 2016), ECAL benefits from numerous press articles and awards, an enviable number of exhibitions in famous venues, and the success of its graduates. ECAL currently offers a foundation course, six bachelor’s degree courses, and seven master’s/MAS programmes in Fine Arts, Film, Graphic Design, Media & Interaction Design, Photography, Industrial & Product Design, Type Design, Design for Luxury & Craftsmanship, and Design Research for Digital Innovation (with EPFL+ECAL Lab). www.ecal.ch
Association Mec-Art
The purpose of Association Mec-Art (Pour la Mécanique d’Art), from Sainte-Croix, Switzerland, is to preserve and promote ancestral traditions, enabling technological and artistic advances and building a bridge between art and mechanical technology. The initiative was born in 2017 with the involvement of CPNV, PERFORM, the town of Sainte-Croix and artisans themselves. Today it has become a centre dedicated to this savoir-faire, with a mission to unite, share and address authentic values. In reaction to this era of globalisation, connectivity, dematerialisation and virtual reality, an increasing number of people are eager to discover local traditions. The artisans of Sainte-Croix region are committed to maintaining and passing on their local artisanal heritage. In 2020 UNESCO placed horological and mechanical art on the Representative List of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. ”Mécanique d’Art” is when mechanics add both motion and emotion to art, thus becoming a mechanical work of art. That includes automata, music boxes, singing birds, artisanal watchmaking, animated paintings or sculptures, mechanical music and any mechanical object referring to art without the restriction of motorisation. www.mec-art.ch
Nicolas Le Moigne
Nicolas Le Moigne is a designer and professor at ECAL/University of Art and Design Lausanne. For more than ten years, he has headed the Master of Advanced Studies in Design for Luxury & Craftsmanship. This unique course allows the students to work in close collaboration with prestigious maisons, which can draw on a heritage of a hundred years or more, in order to further their design education in areas of excellence as varied as fine watchmaking, tableware, fashion, gastronomy and the métiers d’art, and to learn particular techniques with regards to the use of noble materials and craftsmanship.
Simon Kidston
With high-profile clients around the world, Simon Kidston is a well-known expert on classic cars. He began his career in the late-1980s at a London auction house, before co-founding Brooks (now Bonhams) Europe in Geneva, spending the next decade staging international auctions dedicated to rare and valuable cars. In 2006, he set up an independent consultancy to advise collectors that is now synonymous with Private Treaty sales of rare and exceptional motor cars. He has been involved in several heritage events for historic cars including the Cartier Travel With Style concours in India, the Mille Miglia, the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance and the Concorso d’Eleganza Villa d’Este in Italy. He contributes to Ramp and Vanity Fair magazines and has just published the definitive book on the Lamborghini Miura.
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