Taubman College Sirota Planning Exhibition for 2017 St.-Etienne Biennale
Assistant Professor Anya Sirota with her practice, Akoaki, has been invited to curate an exhibition for the 10th Edition of the Saint- Etienne Internationale Design Biennale in France, March 9 – April 9, 2017. Titled Out of Site, the exhibition will explore the social impact of design in cities by transporting three original, site-specific installations from Detroit to Saint-Etienne. In addition, Akoaki is partnering with DC3 and Creative Many to produce programming for an experimental off-site installation.
Detroit may be emblematic of enduring urban challenges in post-industrial America; but for a growing number of creative advocates, the city offers the chance to reinvent the very way we work and live. The Detroit-based studio Akoaki brings the city’s evolving ideas and resourcefulness to the foreground. With catalytic initiatives and collective pop actions, the designers reveal underexposed narratives about how Detroiters are changing work paradigms through music, agriculture and pioneering cultural production. The Out of Site exhibition shares those insights with a broad international audience by bringing three original installations and programming to St Etienne and demonstrating how design can instigate positive social change in complex urban environments.
The 10th Biennale Internationale Design Saint-Etienne 2017 is curated by Olivier Peyrcot , with the theme, Working Promesse. Focused on the shifting work paradigms in design and in cities at large, the biennale aims to transform the Cité du Design St-Etienne into an experimental laboratory of innovation. France’s only design biennale hosted by their only UNESCO City of Design, the event draws over 200,000 people to the city over the span of one month.
http://www.biennale-design.com/saint-etienne/
Featured on Crains Detroit: http://www.crainsdetroit.com/article/20160719/NEWS/160719809/detroit-to-be-featured-in-french-exhibit-on-future-of-work
