from December 2015 to December 2016

École Supérieure d’Arts Appliqués de Bourgogne – ÉSAAB, Nevers

Sylvain Baumann (1981, France) lives and works in Basel (Switzerland) and Le Frasnois.

After two consecutive residencies that welcomed Aude Pariset and Ève Chabanon in the graphic design section of ESAAB, this year Sylvain Baumann is working with BTS students on the school’s product design course. Baumann works with media such as sculpture, sound, drawing, photography, and text to create installations that question contemporary design and architecture, which he approaches from an essentially political and ideological angle.

“I am interested in the nature of the intentions that motivate the design of our contemporary architectural environment. It is important to ask how the people who develop our living spaces think about Man. What conceptions of human nature are their new proposals for the organization of space founded on? And how do these guide humankind’s evolution?” (Sylvain Baumann)

“The project I want to carry out on this residency consists of a series of medium-sized sculptures that will explore the question of trust. I would like to carry out this project with the collaboration of the school’s teachers and students using the very mechanisms used to make consumer products.” (Sylvain Baumann)