Since March, the Foundation has hosted a team of designers in Cognac tasked with initiating its first major project : the mapping local resources. Led by Olivier Peyricot*, the team is made up of designer-researchers Valentin Patis, Mathilde Pellé, Lola Carrel, and Ernesto Oroza.

Commissioned by the Foundation, they are conducting research and investigations with inhabitants of the Charentes and Charente-Maritime territories to identify and list local resources: natural and industrial, tangible and intangible. Whether it’s remarkable materials or neglected deposits, living techniques or forgotten know-how, the approach aims to create a problematized panoramic vision of the wealth of this territory.

This initiative aims to establish avenues for future work that can be taken up by future creators invited by the Foundation: selected for their approach combining creation and ecological transition, they will be invited to develop an experimentation in this local context.

The team of designers has met with multiple stakeholders (institutions, companies, individuals, professional networks) in order to create the most accurate image possible.
This approach will lead to an exhibition that will be open to the public from June 29th until December 2023 and will be accompanied by a program of conferences. Ultimately, this work will result in the design of an online tool listing all the research.

*Olivier Peyricot: researcher and designer. Previously Director of Research and Publications at the Cité du design and curator of the 10th St Etienne Design Biennale.