From 15 February to 23 June 2024, the Cité du design presents the work of the 2023 graduates of Saint-Étienne Higher School of Art and Design (ESADSE). The exhibition put together by a guest curator under the title Reels poses the question of reality and how it is perceived. Between studies, graduation and confrontation with the public, a new combination plays out that lies somewhere between memory and projection, between the end of one cycle and the beginning of a new one.
What does an exhibition of graduates' degree projects mean? Is it a first confrontation with real life? In any case, it is obviously the culmination of the student phase. It is not yet real life, but the crest of a wave taking us there. The Reels exhibition is a manifestation of that state: a wave, a movement, a sort of drive wheel that carries us forward.
"Reels" when written without an accent in French, becomes ambiguous in its meaning. Real - réel - or reel in the English sense? Both of course. The English word "reel" is a common term on social media, especially on Instagram, which has popularised a new form. Reels are short films, mostly scripted, sometimes edited and set to music. Like everything that appears on social media, they reflect a sort of reality but are not actually reality.
So the choice of the word Reels as the title of the exhibition poses this question
of reality and how it is perceived. So what makes Reels real? Where does reality
begin and where does it end? Here we will find projects that sometimes have real
implications in our everyday lives and also some that have visibly fewer, but still
have the ability to transform us just as much. Everything fits into a scenography
consisting of a cheerful, slightly chaotic concentric movement, but also into our
reality. A far cry from reels.
Didier Courbot, Galerie A1043
Guest curator
The final degree project is a rite of passage that marks the end of one cycle and the beginning of a new one. ESADSE promotes its students’ degree projects with a catalogue and an exhibition at the Cité du design. The Reels exhibition put together by guest curator Didier Courbot features the work of some thirty young artists and designers who graduated from the School in 2023 and covers all the courses and options. Their work is the fruit of five years’ study and theoretical and practical research and, through it, they are expressing their individual points of view, exploring new languages as well as testifying to the creative force of our school of art and design.
