10ºN/10ºS is an interdisciplinary collaboration between 4 independent French designers; Fabienne Chassin, Florian Méry, Sandra Villet and Philippe Moine from the design association Collectif Designers+ based in The Rhône Alpes region of France; and Fiona Thompson, Nick James, Joanne Mitchell and Fiona Rutherford from Designed & Made in northeast England.
Joint work produced by the designers during a year-long ‘design exchange’ will be on display at the Sage, Gateshead from 16-25 October 2009 and subsequently at the inauguration of the Cité du Design (International Design Centre), St Etienne from 4 December 2009 until 4 January 2010.
The 10º project began in earnest, after almost a year of planning, following a Research and Development award by Arts Council England NE and Designed & Made in October 2008. The 8 participating designers, selected by design curator Charlie Arnold, met each other for the first time in St Etienne during the international design biennial in November 2008 where they paired up to begin planning 16 new, collaborative artworks.
Conference
The project was launched by Charlie Arnold at a conference championing the work of British Designer-Makers at the International Design Biennial St Etienne 2008
2009. By April 2009 the 10º project had attracted funding from Arts Council England NE, Designed and Made (Newcastle) and Collectif Designers+ (St Etienne). The 8 designers then started making their first commissions to the following brief.”After discussion and agreement with your exchange partner, make a signature piece of work that your partner will either complete with a contrasting, integral component OR by creating a ‘response’ piece to be shown with it.”
On completion at the beginning of June 2009, the first pieces were ’swapped’ between the exchange partners and then the finalizing/response pieces were made during July and August. This culminated in a body of work to be exhibited in 4 specially designed and constructed cases, made by designer-maker David Arnold. These serve the dual purpose of transporting and displaying the exhibition. Each display cabinet is dedicated to one design exchange duo.
Filming
Students from the design and film departments of the Université Jean Monnet, St Etienne are filming the exchange project to create a didactic video for the university’s language department as well as a useful documentary for the 10º project.
Additionally English students in France and French students in UK are acting as interpreters for the designers to facilitate the filmed interviews. The Université Jean Monnet will present the exhibition again along with the completed video project during the biennial St Etienne in 2010.
‘Creativitiworks’, an organization based at Sunderland University, committed to providing work-space and support to fledgling creative businesses, has funded one of their film companies to create a reciprocal video documentary with the original French film-makers during the French designers visit to Design Event, Newcastle in October 2009, thus complementing the film already made of the British designers visit to St Etienne during the biennial 2008.
More information about the project can be found on the bilingual blog http://designexchange.wordpress.com and on the website www.tendegrees.org.uk
Charlie Arnold October 2009
