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Human and Non-human heritage preservation

SAVOIR(-)FAIRE FOR FRUGAL INNOVATION

Lucas Dauvergne from STU-DIO and the students Judith Zantain, Vera Dubost, Wilfried Becret, Chloe Helson, Pauline Landrieu, Lorenzo Oliva, Philomène Robert, Lily Saillant, Eloi Regnier

Acteur

STU-DIO is a design studio dedicated to the development of local, frugal and sustainable production systems, based on the observation that the future lies in the globalisation of innovations and know-how, coupled with a re-localisation of production systems and a decentralisation of waste recovery. Its founder Lucas Dauvergne, a graduate of the École des Arts Décoratifs de Paris, is an activist who found his way to design, after a passage through the engineering sciences and biology. Because of his scientific background, he takes ecology as a complex science, a vector of real and sustainable innovation, both socially and environmentally. His projects therefore attempt to present ecology in a new light, playful, practical, aesthetic, sensitive and even sometimes magical, in contrast to punitive ecology.

Action

The Savoir(-)faire for frugal innovation studio (a year-long transdisciplinary laboratory format) was developed by Lucas Dauvergne of STU-DIO and is the result of a partnership between the École des Arts Décoratifs de Paris and La Réserve des Arts. The Action starts from the observation that consumer society, the pillar of the second industrial era, has disregarded ancestral know-how. This obvious disconnection with the living world is now blatantly showing its perverse effects: destruction of ecosystems, jobs and acculturation. The aim of this project in the making is to highlight innovations and know-how identified in the four corners of the world, to apply them to under-exploited resources, constraints, aesthetics and local infrastructures in order to formalise proofs of concept that are as frugal as they are ingenious. Visitors will be able to discover the students’s projects and participate in their development thanks to the participative platform S-F IF (sfif.tk) which was also developed within the framework of the studio.

BIRCH IN ALL ITS STATES

By Éloi Régnier

Using all the waste from a birch tree farm (dead wood, mushrooms, pitch, bark) by valorising various ancient and modern skills. Like a manifesto, this project will result in the production of a chair using all these resources in its manufacture.

NATURAL PAINTS

By Judith Zantain
& Véra Dubost

The aim of the project is to make an inventory of the know-how related to natural dyes, in order to outline potential innovations related to modern domestic infrastructures.

FERMENTATION & CERAMICS

By Lily Saillant
Philomène Robert
& Chloé Helson

Onggi is a Korean biodegradable ceramic (the walls of which slowly allow air, but not water, to pass through) designed to ensure perfect fermentation of kimchi, one of the essential elements of the Korean staple meal. The study of this process is leading to innovations in winemaking, cheese-making and other lacto-fermentation processes, such as sauerkraut.

PAPER & RUMINANTS

By Lorenzo Oliva

Since ruminants do not digest cellulose, we used to filter their excrement to make paper pulp. The research aims at finding an applied modern potential of this forgotten skill, such as adapting this material to the technique of paper flocking ( the process of shaping egg cartons).

GLASS & CULLET

By Wilfried Becret

The aim of the project is to find applications for common waste such as cullet (pieces of glass too fine to be recycled) by democratising the melting of glass using a microwave impulse, by simply and safely hijacking a domestic microwave oven.

CONTEXT
Consumer society, the pillar of the second industrial era, has disregarded ancestral know-how. Excessive artificialisation – even the workforce is robotised – and a clear disconnection with the living world is clearly showing its perverse effects today: destruction of ecosystems, jobs and de-culturing. However, this state of affairs has allowed new tools and new paradigms to emerge, authorising us today to question our recent scientific and technical discoveries by associating them with know-how that is in the process of being forgotten. This is how Galalith, for example, a material with a forgotten know-how, makes sense in a contemporary society that is a major producer of dairy waste; This is how dyeing, which is a waste product, should find its meaning in an economy where textiles are in constant need of a new look; This is how herbivore droppings, once the primary source of paper pulp, should now find their place in this world that consumes so much water and bleaching agents; etc. The Action Savoir(-)faire for frugal innovation studio therefore aims to highlight innovations and know-how identified in the four corners of the world in order to find outlets for under-exploited local resources, constraints, aesthetics and infrastructures, with a view to formalising proofs of concept that are both frugal and ingenious. The projects developed by the students are just the starting point of a research process to be co- developed with the spectator of the ExpoAction who will participate in refining them by adapting them to a different context.

APPROACH
The studio relied on theoretical courses capable of highlighting different skills that are in the process of being forgotten, and how they could provide concrete answers to current problems, through a synthesis of the ancient and the modern. The students identified these skills and, depending on a given deposit and/or context, were able to apprehend them in the creation of proofs of concept, in groups of two or three. These exchanges between theory and practice were interspersed with interventions or visits to workshops by personalities advocating a return to the intelligence of making. The residency at the Réserve des Arts, a recycling centre dedicated mainly to the world of art and performance, enabled the participating students from École des Arts Décoratifs de Paris to benefit – in addition to the expertise offered by STU-DIO in terms of know-how valorisation, resource management and materials engineering – from the workshops and resources offered by the Réserve des Arts.

The results of the studio will evolve into the S-F IF platform (sfif.tk), which aims to highlight know-how that opens up the potential for frugal innovation. Designed by Lucas Dauvergne of STU-DIO – in partnership with the Réserve des Arts – this tool postulates that the future lies in the globalisation of innovations and know-how, the re-localisation of production systems and a decentralisation of waste recovery. The platform enables the approach developed by each student to be understood and invites the user to participate in its improvement by adapting it to different contexts.