Nature In A Kit

For several years, the evidence has been there to see: nature is coming back in force in society’s discussions as much as in the imagination of contemporary creators. What with the call for collective responsibility to safeguard it and the multiplication of urban substitutes, nature seems omnipresent, whereas we have never been so distanced from it. The central subject of very pragmatic challenges, its original inspirational power is effecting a transformation and confronting mankind with the question of its use. Contemporary creation has made itself into an eloquent interpreter of this and is delineating new outlines through sundry media. Even if the sources of inspiration draw on an apparently unsurprising repertoire of forms and themes – plant life, minerals, the planets, clouds, natural phenomena and, more broadly, landscape – designers and artists take pleasure in clouding the issues with literal responses, allusive evocations, never before seen hybridisations and biting visual comments.

NATURE IN A KIT examines the position and “quality” of nature today and the use we make of it. What part does nostalgia play in this return to nature, a cyclical phenomenon but one that always bears a different content? This appeal to nature seems at first sight to convey a need for the authentic and definite values in the face of the anxieties of the era. But if nature is envisaged as the driving force behind spontaneous growth, what is the real significance of the block of wood serving as a seat in some highly sterilised living-room in a design showroom or the stabilised green plants that decorate airconditioned entrance halls and anonymous offices? Such formal preoccupations turn out to be eminently sociological: designed nature looks like an artificial construction, synthetic nature, as is the case with so many other contemporary components. Halfway between fantasy nature and genuine nature, it seems in any case to have exhausted its powerful symbolism. …The apartment gives itself the airs of an ecosystem, the housing environment is hailed as the new Eden. Will the only answer to anxieties about our remoteness from nature or its loss merely remain a concern for conservation of its traces?

The exhibition takes the form of a dialogue between the natural and the artificial and occupies the entire 400 square metres of the museum set aside for temporary exhibitions. This deliberately binary approach, given the complexity of such a subject, infuses the two major sections of the exhibition: Nature and its double takes up the first-floor premises while Green floor occupies the ground-floor galleries. The apparent confrontation allows for a continuous coming and going between imitation and original, pretence and authenticity, still-life and organic life; the demarcation line remains deliberately porous, reminding the visitor of possible interactions as well as doubts. Thus other groupings are incorporated in order to cloud the issues of this NATURE IN A KIT with hybrid contents and fluid meanings.

Invited creators

Eero Aarnio / Thomas Adank / Saâdane Afif / &made / Ron Arad / Article Design / Az&mut / Sannah Belzer / John Angelo Benson / Susi et Ueli Berger / Sebastian Bergne / Fabio Biancaniello pour l’ECAL / Mattia Bonetti / Tord Boontje / Ronan & Erwan Bouroullec / Andrea Branzi / Nicolette Brunklaus / Robby et Francesca Cantarutti / Cyprien Chabert / Colors/Fabrica / 5.5 Designers / Orianne Dambrune et Marion Excoffon / Felix De Pass / Mark Dion / Patrick Dougherty / Terry Dwan / Martino d’Esposito / Fabrica / Shao Fao / Yvonne Fehling et Jennie Peiz / Bean Finneran / Fredrikson-Stallard / FRONT design / Fulguro / Naoto Fukasawa / Hubert Le Gall / Frank Gehry / Moreno Gentili / Piero Gilardi / Natanel Gluska / Grandeur Nature / Konstantin Grcic / Jan Habraken & Alissia Melka-Teichroew / Ilkka Halso / Robert f. Hammerstiel / Estelle Hanania / Ineke Hans / Elina Helenius / Michel Huelin / Philippe Hurel / Emanuelle Jaques / Ulrika Jarl / Ronèl Jordaan / Rachna Joshi Nair (SIMBL’) / Chris Kabel pour Droog Design / Sanna Kannisto / Meric Kara / Tetê Knecht / Vincent Kohler / Cathrine Kullberg / Shiro Kuramata / Olivier Lasserre / Arik Levy / Gudrun Lilja / Xavier Lust / Jonas Marguet / Peter Marigold / Stéphanie Marin / Javier Mariscal / Tony Matelli / Julian Mayor / Mario Mazzer / Michael Meredith / Mario Minale & Kuniko Maeda / Molodesign / Jasper Morrison / Olaf Nicolai / Josh Owen / Russell Pinch / Vik Prjónsdóttir / Qubo Gas / Marc Quinn / Peter Rösel / Denis Santachiara / Ene-Liis Semper / Borek Sipek / Wieki Somers / Robert Stadler / Philippe Starck / Alice Stepanek & Steven Maslin / Patricia Urquiola / Bas Van der Veer / Verges & Lagae / Marcel Wanders / Laurence Weiner / Leonard Wilkop / Robert Wilson / WOKmedia / Emmanuel Wolfs et Jung Bo-Young / Woodloops – Just nature ! / YKSI Design – Leonne Cuppen / Tokujin Yoshioka / Tristan Zimmermann / Edwin Zwakman/ Zoom Design