The third exhibition in the Present >< Future cycle, simé grenn takes us
to the islands of Guadeloupe and Martinique. It reveals the singular and
sensitive practice of design duo dach&zephir, which opens up to the Other
and celebrates the necessary diversity of the World through small stories
forgotten, neglected or erased from official narratives.
The emergence of a Creole design
After graduating from the École nationale supérieure
des Arts Décoratifs (National Higher School of
Decorative Arts) in Paris, French designers Florian
Dach and Dimitri Zephir formed their duo in 2016.
For them, our modern world must tell its story and
be shared in accordance with the principles of the
interpenetration of cultures, in a dynamic of fair
exchange.
After completing their diploma with distinction, around the theme
La figure de l’Autre (the Figure of Otherness), they created their
studio dach&zephir. They devised it as a free creative space,
where they pool their own lived experiences — their roots are in
Paris and Guadeloupe — in a quest to discover what makes history
and identity. History and cultural heritage are addressed as a rich
vein of raw material for design, capable of producing a language of
forms, materials and uses that underlies artefacts.
They define themselves as “researcher-authors” in design.
Their creative approach, based on the Whole-world concept
of Martinique-born poet and philosopher Édouard Glissant,
is conveyed through Élòj Kréyòl. Initiated as soon as 2015,
this research project focuses on the forgotten, downplayed or
overlooked cultural and creative histories of the Creole societies
of the West Indies (Antilles françaises), whose roots date back,
among other things, to colonial slavery in Guadeloupe and in
Martinique. What dash&zephir offer is a contemporary vision and
transmission of those histories. The duo believe French design
is in the era of creolisation: it suggests the creation of a rich,
shared narrative of knowledge and heritages. A design based
on connections that produces more connections, embracing the
diversity of cultural and creative histories that make up a France
that is not limited to the mainland.
Telling the history of Creole culture does
not mean, in a word, granting it a land, a
people, and rites that could make it specific.
It also means restoring its memory, and
attesting to its ability to reinvent itself, to
weave itself into a plural present where
everyone can be themselves, with their own
qualities and flaws.
