As happens every year, alongside its commercial initiatives Maison&Objet presents an extensive cultural program, including spaces for the promotion of young talents. The upcoming iteration, in Paris from 7 to 11 September 2023, will again include the Rising Talent Awards. After the editions on Lebanon, the United States, Japan, Netherlands and Spain, the Rising Talent Awards of the fair in Paris return to France, focusing on seven up-and-coming designers within the French ecosystem of contemporary creativity.
Chaired by the designer Philippe Starck, this year’s jury is composed of Stéphane Galerneau, Isabelle Dubern, Lauriane Duriez, Alexis Georgacopoulos, Hervé Lemoine, Constance Rubini, and Emmanuel Tibloux. Each of the seven jurors has selected a young talent, presented at the start of September in Paris during Maison et Objet 2023. Once again this year, Ateliers d’Art de France, the national association of artisans, artists and craft companies, will select one young artisan to ensure a better balance of practices and approaches. Its president Stéphane Galerneau has chosen the ceramist Jeanne Adrieu for the Rising Talent Craft award in 2023.
Selected by Philippe Starck, designer and chairman of the jury of Rising Talent Awards France 2023, and Alexis Georgacopoulos, director of the Ecole cantonale d’art de Lausanne (ÉCAL), Switzerland, Athime de Crécy was born in 1996 and lives and works in Paris. After taking a degree at ÉCAL in 2017, he began his career by working with Starck. For five years he developed large-scale industrial products for leading brands in the fields of lighting, décor and high-tech, while continuing his own independent practice.
In 2022 he founded his studio ADC to focus on research and the creation of his own pieces. Reinventing everyday useful objects, Athime de Crécy explores their functional possibilities by playing with form, challenging the traditional chain of production.
Selected by Isabelle Dubern, co-founder of The Invisible Collection, Hugo Drubay was born in 1991. He lives and works in Bourron-Marlotte, Seine-et-Marne as an interior architect, designer and sculptor. Inspired by nature, Drubay uses a combination of techniques ranging from traditional crafts to new technologies like 3D printing and digital sculpture.
A naturalist and researcher, he observes the forms of nature to incorporate them into his creative process. With a degree in interior architecture, product design and visual communication from École Bleue in 2015, Hugo Drubay has nurtured his talent by working with artists like Jacques Garcia, Loris Gréaud and Théo Mercier. In 2019 he won the Mobilier National at the Toulon Design Parade.
Chosen by Hervé Lemoine, president of Mobilier National, Tim Leclabart, born in 1988, lives and works in Paris. After having collaborated with galleries and antiquarians, coming to terms with historical design and the contemporary scene, Leclabart opened his own studio in Paris in 2019. At the PAD in London and Atelier Jespers in Brussels he presented his first two coffee tables, based on the modern lines of Brazilian architecture.
Collaborations with the galleries Mouvements Modernes and Ketabi Bourdet have allowed him to develop new and unusual sculptural explorations. Aware of the responsibilities of designers to foster a sustainable future, his recent projects reduce the carbon footprint, utilizing and recycling waste materials.
Picked by Constance Rubini, director of madd-bordeaux and design curator, Arthur Fosse and Samuel Perhirin, born respectively in 1997 and 1996, live and work in Paris. Passage, the brand they have created, builds a bridge between fashion and design and sets out to combine fabrics and furnishings in a unique collection to stand up to the test of time, thanks to ingenious design and high-quality materials. The design of a lamp or a jacket follows the same process. The fabrics tend to become more durable in stylistic and productive terms. The furnishings step back from function and recover the originality of form embodied by the world of fashion.
Selected by Lauriane Duriez, director of Ateliers de Paris and of the department of design and fashion of Ville de Paris, Sébastien Cluzel and Morgane Pluchon, SCMP DESIGN OFFICE, were both born in 1988. They live and work in Lille and Paris. After having studied at the École Supérieure d’Art et Design de Saint-Étienne, Morgane worked among others with Luca Nichetto and for IKEA Sweden, while Sébastien completed his training with a Master degree at ÉCAL, where he then worked for three years as an assistant.
The duo’s approach is to put the human element back at the center of design practice, rethinking the use of everyday objects, as well as how they are perceived in space and produced. SCMP works with makers of editions and companies in France and abroad, to design products that are functional, durable and elegant.
Selected by Emmanuel Tibloux, director of the École nationale supérieure des Arts Décoratifs de Paris (EnsAD), Nicolas Verschaeve was born in 1995, and lives and works in Paris and Brussels. His practice feeds on sensitivity to the ways we inhabit the world, applying a critical approach to the production of objects, spaces, images and thoughts.
Commissioned or self-initiated, the projects of Nicolas Verschaeve focus on relationships, insisting on the same rigor in the design of form. Their development is guided by the laws of material, the gestures that transform it and the processes of craftsmanship and industry involved in making and using.
Winner of the Rising Talent Craft award, selected by Stéphane Galerneau, president of Ateliers d’Art de France, Jeanne Andrieu was born in 1995, and lives and works in Hostun, Drôme. She took a degree at ESAM Caen in 2019 and at ENSAD Limoges, where she received the Diplôme National Supérieur d’Expression Plastique in June 2022. As a ceramist, she continued her training at Maison de Dieulefit (Drôme).
Her pieces with organic contours pay homage to nature, plants and the complex beauty of underwater flora and fauna. Attracted by the sculptural qualities of coral, Jeanne Andrieu is fascinated by the shapes, patterns and colors of the calcareous skeletons of tropical seas. In this way, she creates objects that form a dreamy naturalistic fresco.
