‘Indice’

‘Indice’ (Fr: indication, sign, clue). A collaborative project between the French porcelain manufacture -Sèvres’, and UK based designers  Karen Price & Yoav Reches. The work seeks to give new life to Sèvres’ existing catalog of work through optical magnification. The lenses highlights the perfectionist detail and craftsmanship of work that might otherwise be overlooked by the non-professional eye.

Originally exhibited as part of Platform 8 collaborative exhibition with Sèvres ‘The Enemy of the Good’ during Designer’s Days (Paris, June 09) the work will be shown in London at ‘small show, HUGE TALENT’ and a specially designed installation will be exhibited as part of ‘Objects of Luxury: French Porcelain of the eighteenth century’ at the Victoria and Albert Museum.

‘Objects of Luxury: French porcelain of the eighteenth century’,  18^th September 2009 – March 2010, Victoria and Albert Museum, Cromwell Road, London SW7 2RL

‘small show, HUGE TALENT’, 16^th- 20^th September 2009, Sotheby’s, Kiddell Gallery, 34-35 New Bond Street, London, W12 2A

Photo credits: Julie Pradier

Sevres visit

Anti-contamination shoes at Sevres

 

For me it is almost impossible to narrow down a highlight of the trip or to try to articulate what I have learnt during the short visit. However, if pushed, two things stood out. Firstly the little details used, such as the shoes, which although are only made for a tiny part of the process but are still made with care and precision. Secondly, it  was the lack of computers involved in the process. Sometimes, because of the expense of using hand labour and the cheapness of computer programs in comparison, the other costs of our society’s reliance on technology, machinery and the internet are overlooked, for example, the environmental costs.

On a much larger scale it was poignant to see Sevres supported and financed by the French government at a time when Wedgwood (and it’s subsidiaries Royal Doulton, Waterford etc) have been allowed to go into administration by the British government. 

Karen Price

My life in post-it notes

Hyde Park Tree

As well as being a good general introductory project ‘What will the neighbours think’ was also a brief that gave us the opportunity to introduce ourselves to the rest of the platform. Hardly knowing anyone else this posed one major question – how much should I tell them? I didn’t know if I would become best friends or arch enemies with any of the group and so didn’t want to either be too closed or indeed too open too soon. On top of this I was worried that any intervention I did could be (mis)interpreted by other members of the platform who might read their own opinions and experiences into what they saw in my room rather than reading the work as I had intended.
In the end I decided to be completely open about myself and wrote out my entire life story on post-it notes which I stuck on two large walls in my bedroom. Each post-it note only contained part of a sentence, and they were arranged randomly on the wall. Thus, anyone of the platform could read all of my secrets and just still not know anything about me as they would never know which post-it note went with another.
In order to publicise my work (the second part of the brief) I took my work into the public arena – twice replicating the post-it notes externally and also experimenting with leaving specific facts about myself in places important to me (whether good or bad). You can see photos of this work here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/32355052@N06/sets/72157611264285391/

Karen Price