This summer, Stephen Burks ran a workshop at the Domaine de Boisbuchet. Entitled "The People Package", his workshop looked at the layers we create around ourselves. The initial description of the project went as follows:

"An infant crawls covered by a diaper. A teenager rides the subway insulated by his hoody and IPod. A trophy wife speeds along the highway protected only by her labels, a titanium frame and five airbags. Who are we beneath the skin? What are we without the products that define our lives? What if we lose the external context that surrounds us?

Welcome to the life of the mind outside of the body, beyond artifice. If the primary package is organic and the secondary package is synthetic then what is the tertiary package?

Package yourself, identity and soul.

(Recommended viewing . . . Akira, Crash, Dead Ringers, Eraserhead, The Thing)"

Kicking off by showing some sci-fi and horror movies, Stephen encouraged the participants to think about the products we surround ourselves with, and how they can be grouped. Creating small teams, he asked the participants to look at six different 'layers' in which we envelop ourselves - the beauty layer, the brand layer, the domestic layer, the techno layer, the mechanical layer, and the transportation layer. I didn't really know what to make of the movie watching at first (especially not being a big fan of horror movies myself), but was at least able to see a very strong point in the sci-fi movies, as they pushed the participants towards a slightly futuristic, but thus very much forward-looking approach. Every afternoon, the group would sit together and look at images that Stephen was picking out for them and that were connected to each group's specific topic. All in all, the workshop was one of the more conceptual ones, looking at the creative process in great detail, but culminating in a stunning theatrical performance during which the groups presented their results.

Please click on one of the images below for an enlarged view!

About Stephen Burks (USA):

Stephen Burks is one of the most recognized American industrial designers of his generation. He and his New York studio, Readymade Projects, have been responsible for creative design direction on projects ranging from retail interiors and events to packaging, consumer products, lighting, furniture and home accessories. He has developed innovative concepts for renowned international brands including Artecnica, B&B Italia, Boffi, Calvin Klein, Cappellini, Coty Prestige, Estee Lauder and Missoni, as well as continuing his commitment to sustainable design in the developing world through his association with the American non-profits Aid To Artisans and the Nature Conservancy. As described in the New York Times style magazine T, he is the first African-American industrial designer to ever collaborate with these companies. His work has been featured in numerous design publications and journals including & Fork, 1000 New Designs, Young Designers Americas, Design Secrets: Furniture, Design in Steel, New American Furniture Design and the International Design Yearbook. Stephen’s projects have been exhibited around the world at the International Contemporary Furniture Fair in New York, the Salone del Mobile in Milan, the Stockholm Furniture Fair, Tokyo Design Week, the Victoria & Albert Museum, the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, the Knoxville Museum of Art, the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago, the Vivid Gallery, Rotterdam, as well as Design Miami Basel and Design Miami. He has hosted design workshops and been a visiting critic at design schools internationally including the Beckmans School of Design in Stockholm, Centro in Mexico City, the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Michigan, the ECAL in Lausanne, Ecole Des Beaux Arts de Saint Etienne, Beckmans & Konstfack in Stockholm, Parsons School of Design in New York, Pratt Institute in New York, the Rhode Island School of Design, and the UNAM in Mexico City, and the Vitra Design Museum in Boisbuchet, France. As a lecturer, Stephen has been an invited speaker at the 2006 South African Indaba Design Expo and the 2007 8th International Conference of Architecture and Design City x City in Mexico City, the 2007 C6 Symposium The Art World Is Flat: Globalism, Crisis and Opportunity in Chicago, the New York International Gift Fair, Designboost, Svenskform and the Stockholm Furniture Fair. He has also served on the IMM Trend Board of the Cologne Furniture Fair for the past two years and was honored to serve on the jury of the 2007 Cooper-Hewitt Smithsonian Institution’s National Design Awards in New York. Stephen studied architecture at the Illinois Institute of Technology and Product Design at IIT’S Institute of Design, as well as attending Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture. He is a recipient of the Illinois Institute of Technology Alumni Professional Achievement Award.