Matters of Fact at Boisbuchet – A Mid Summer Review

We started off this season with a controversial exhibition on “Gender and Design” (on show until September 16th), which Guggenheim’s curator Verena Formanek together with participants of her workshop created in only 5 days. Following that, Guillermo Santoma’s workshop realized an upside down treehouse, Ruedi and Vera Baur left a memorable entrance for Boisbuchet’s site, New York based artist Andrew Ondrejcak’s team performed a 30 minute opera, and Japanese Jo Nagasaka art directed a dozen marvellous pieces of “Good Look Wood”..

Then the frenzied music of Yuri Suzuki’s and Yamaha’s workshop set the rhythm for two very productive workshops on material and technique experimentation with Dutch designers Lex Pot and Bertjan Pott. Temperatures rose further when Timur Ersen conducted the building of Alvaro Siza’s fireplace, Hadrien Venat burned hand-made and 3-D printed ceramics, Philippe Malouin’s workshop put into operation a production chain for utensils made of recycled aluminium, and Jorge Penades – under scorching heat – took his team for an expedition into the countryside to discover peasant ingenuity. Thankfully, a meditation path, installed along the river by Franziska Kessler’s yoga and design class, invited you to come down and recharge.

It is half-time now, but no pause: Stephanie Chaltiel and Shameel Muhammed erect an earth cupola at the lake and Gazprom’s staff are rethinking their offices. 9 more workshops are to come and each of them is going to sparkle with energy: they’ll make biomimetic architecture with Achim Menges and Dylan Wood, light with Sabine Marcelis, an illuminating kinetic sculpture with artist Janet Echelmann, a Japanese garden with Hiroshi Nakao and Susanne Kohte, food from insects with Katharina Unger, architecture films with Mauricio Freyre, botanic art with Pyrus, glass and ceramics with Ferréol Babin and the Corning Museum of Glass, and leather objects with Krzysztof Lukasik and the Spanish luxury brand Loewe.

Boisbuchet’s creative summer festival includes also lectures on biomimicry and the history of open source, demonstrations of glass and ceramic making, guided tours of our architectural park and exhibition, dinner-meetings with our guest artists, designers and architects, and last but not least a lovely bistro down at the river – the only place where there is no work – just cooling down. So be welcome and join us for the second half of this marvellous summer!