The Parisian fair Maison&Objet celebrates its 30th anniversary, merging continuity and innovation, presenting a new format for the Rising Talent Awards, the honors assigned to emerging creativity. This iteration pays tribute to the importance of digitalization, an indispensable factor in our everyday life.
“Two terms seemed obvious to us: high-tech and know-how” says the director of the Rising Talents Awards, Dereen O’Sullivan, linking to the overall theme of Maison&Objet 2024, Tech Eden, in an apt exegesis of how advanced technologies, embodied in phenomena like artificial intelligence or 3D printing, have given contemporary designers new ways to express their creativity.
There is also the readiness of contemporary design go absorb impressions from different worlds, an aspect that is reflected in the versatility of the jury for this edition of the awards: with personalities like Jean de Loisy, from the world of art; Li Edelkoort, trends analyze and icon of fashion and design; and Joseph Grima, Director of Design Academy Eindhoven.
This team’s research is presented in Hall 6 of the fair, displaying the works of a selection of creative talents who stand out for their ability to balance digital innovation with traditional forms of expertise.
The young designers are divided into two categories, Tech Talents and Know-How Talents. The first group has three exponents: Audrey Large, nominated by Joseph Grima, who experiments with the fusion between moving images and static objects, trying to demonstrate the connection between the world of images and materials; the duo WINT Design Lab (Felix Rasehorn and Robin Hoske), selected by the winner of the last edition of the prize, Athime de Crécy: the studio interacts with researchers in various disciplines, creating innovative proposals that respond to the challenges of the modern world, including a running jacket made with biomaterials. The third selection is Index Office of Nelson Fossey, presented by Ramy Fischler (Designer of the Year of Maison&Objet 2020), a design firm that inserts contemporary tools into crafts processes; outstanding products include the Orbe table lamp, featuring a removable magnetic head.
The Know-How Talents, on the other hand, are Aurélie Hoegy, nominated by Li Edelkoort, a maker of furniture that combines art and functional quality, using rattan and opening up new perspectives for responsible and circular design; Jenna Kaës, selected by Jean de Loisy, who works in the field of decorative arts, exploring spirituality through funerary design, which is still a taboo and a seldom explored topic; Emma Cogné, suggested by the interior designer Lionel Jadot, who uses industrial scrap to create ornamental weaves and to create borders of privacy in the home.
These six, from which one finalist will be chosen for this edition, are joined by the studio Line & Raphaël, identified as Rising Craft Talent (showing separately within the Craft section of the fair) by Stéphane Galerneau, president of Ateliers d’Art de France. The studio was founded by Raphaël Cuevas and Line Pierron and concentrates on the design of furnishings with 3D inlays, in an unusual combination of traditional techniques and futuristic design.
