A CHEF AND A DESIGNER: A DIALOGUE AT THE TABLE
Saturday 26 March —
15:00
- 15:45
The Talks — Hall 7
Description
For their new restaurant, La Halle aux Grains, located within the Bourse de Commerce, Chefs Michel and Sébastien Bras have called upon designer Elise Fouin. Together, they have designed a collection of dishware, made by the Jars factory. Their project tells the story of this venue and of all the excellence of different skills that cross paths there.
Participants
Elise FouinDesigner & Founder - Elise Fouin Design Studio
Sébastien BrasChef - "La Halle aux Grains" & "Le Suquet"
Sylvie AdigardJournalist & Producer
Elise Fouin
Designer & Founder - Elise Fouin Design Studio
In her curious office, Elise Fouin is always ready to provide concrete demonstrations. How did she blend all her sources of inspiration to create such unique work? She comes from the Franche Comté region, where she grew up in a former monastery. She works on visual arts projects and does painting, plays the piano and dances. This shows how she is in harmony with Earth’s bounty and a desire for culture, somewhere between doing and being. She studied at the Ecole Boulle in Paris, first in goldsmithing, then moving on from making to designing, turning toward furniture design. A dual course of study, like a scale, to find her point of equilibrium. For her diploma project in 2003, she once again took a different path and successfully moved into the use of paper, as a designer who gives herself the freedom to be an artist. Because it’s first and foremost with her hands that this designer approaches materials. She loves surprises, is attentive to how materials behave, and she expects the emergence of unexpected shapes. Factories are a favorite playground of hers, where she picks up scraps and waste. Paper, wood, metal, glass, fabric and different kinds of plastic are the rejects she loves. She also prefers leftover and unused materials, but these bear no traces of demonstrative re-use. They are transformed, using reformulated categorizations, combined with new technology. Ever since, she has built her career in a variety of directions. This researcher, who is always looking to supply her personal laboratory, experiments with everything. Experienced in creating on different scales, she works with brands, design makers and institutions. This designer has more than one object or decorative trick up her sleeve. In all the projects she leads, there is play, lightheartedness and mischief, along with all the seriousness inherent in design. She unfurls a hodgepodge of poetic threads, where the fragility and solidity of things rub shoulders. Elise Fouin’s work is best viewed in terms of her open and ingenious approach to design, rather than under the strict terms of a certain style.
Sébastien Bras
Chef - "La Halle aux Grains" & "Le Suquet"
At the helm of the Suquet since 2009, Sébastien Bras is charting a new course for the Aubrac region, with the same passion and sensibility as his father Michel. Following the rhythms of nature, he offers a cuisine of movement that conveys the emotion he feels when immersed in the natural world. His intuitive and precise cuisine thus becomes an experience for others. With Véronique, his partner, he welcomes his guests with the sense of hospitality that is so dear to inhabitants of this plateau and to the Bras family.
Sylvie Adigard
Journalist & Producer
Sylvie Adigard is passionate about creation in the broadest sense, but about the art of living in particular. For many years she has been defending design, architecture and crafts on France 2. What interests her above all is the human encounter. Behind any form of creation, there is the passion and the gesture of a man or a woman... She likes them to tell their story and to explain their creative intention. France is full of talent... She is the witness of it. Sylvie Adigard has been a member of the commission of living heritage companies. She is a jury member and expert in many prestigious design, architecture and arts and crafts competitions and awards. She has also produced documentaries on design, architecture and French know-how.