"For this project at artconnexion in Lille, a bourgeois flat that is also an exhibition space for contemporary art, I wanted to question our gaze, to operate a translation. This is a bit like the 'Digestion' collection, created in 2000 for Edra, a collection of furniture that used manufactured objects as raw materials. But for this project, I did not want to pervert or change the use of the objects. My approach as an industrial designer has always been to withdraw from a formal language; I am very wary of form, because I think it is often culturally exclusionary.

Suburban areas or city centre terraces are often invaded by plastic furniture, which is often looked at with disdain, and one of its only qualities could be its price.

I wanted to question this object and make a change, a bit like a magician or an alchemist who would transform mud into gold.

To take this object, to transform it, to show that our view of forms is not neutral and that it is profoundly cultural, social... To question our view, our perception of objects and the reading of forms.

The very bourgeois living room consists of two plastic armchairs covered in leather. Dressing and adorning these pieces of furniture with leather requires the high level of expertise of two specialised craftsmen. The sheathing of this furniture is in itself an artistic achievement. The shapes then say something else. "

matali crasset