Farmer designers, agriculture on the move

14 July 2021 – 17 January 2022

Market gardening, Malabo (Bioko island), Equatorial Guinea, 2016 © Jan Ziegler

One of the main roles of design today is to invent new reciprocities. While modernity has forged the idea that humans could control their environment and make nature their own, we now know that this is simply not the case. The current crises are our confirmation that it is time to change paradigm.

Design has contributed to the invention of modern life, producing objects on an industrial scale, but it has a new role to play today. More than ever, designers are striving to respond to the problems raised, rethinking the social organisation of our everyday life. We are facing urgent questions: how can we feed, educate and care for ourselves?

In English, the word ‘design’ is used with precision: fashion design, interior design, sport design. This exhibition is devoted to farming design.

20th-century industrialisation has profoundly transformed our soils in order to feed more people, more effectively: two concepts that are nowadays being called into question on all sides. Food has become an incredibly complex arena; from farm to fork, many different processes come into play to feed a growing population.

Farmers face many challenges. Those known as “farmer-researchers” are experimenting with new practices. Like a designer, they are inventing new farming processes, taking into account the specific features of the context and tools, which they readily reinvent to adapt them to specific local characteristics.

At the heart of their concerns, the land, topography, rainwater run-off, sunshine, winds and the biological cycles of fauna and flora are all elements that the “farmer designer” observes to develop their land and promote virtuous links for the soil and its crops.

Farmer designers: agriculture on the move aims to present a new generation of farmers who are looking to feed us while regenerating the soil rather than exploiting it.

The exhibition makes soil our central focus, revealing new knowledge about its role, how it functions and the ecosystem that it harbours. It demonstrates the scales of crops and production, offers insights into new farming practices and reexamines the dimension of time. Here in France as well as on other continents, it explores the origins of a new culture that places people at the heart of unprecedented ties with nature and repositions them on an equal footing, as one of the links in the chain of life alongside living beings, plants and animals. A fresh perspective on the world to which we belong.

It is not about shouting a warning cry but presenting inspiring adventures, projects and scenarios. The challenge is to imagine and reveal avenues towards a desirable – and possible – world.

A major off-site component is offered throughout the exhibition;the visit continues in the farms and vineyards associated with the exhibition. From April, nine themed gardens have also been created in different Bordeaux neighbourhoods, sponsored by farmers, designers and figures from the world of ecology.

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This exhibition is presented at the heart of the Resources Cultural season (10 June – 10 August)
The 2021 Cultural season gives pride of place to local movers and shakers through creations and artistic initiatives that offer everyone the opportunity to reexperience the city in a new way, together. A bridge between the two sides, it looks to be a socially responsible and eco-friendly cultural project that invites us to pay attention to everything that now makes up the real resources of the city and everything that surrounds us.

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Constance Rubini, exhibition curator and director of madd-bordeaux
Assisted by :
Étienne Tornier, curator at madd-bordeaux

Exhibition staging, on and off site
François Bauchet
Jean-Baptiste Fastrez
assisted by Bérengère Bussioz

Narration in images
Atelier CTJM

Graphic design
Clément Le Tulle-Neyret

Highlight
Serge Damon

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This exhibition has been put together with the invaluable support of a scientific committee :
François Bauchet, designer.
Gilles Boeuf, biologist, chair of the scientific board of the French Biodiversity Agency.
Saskia Caracciolo, editorial writer for Regain Magazine.
Marc Dufumier, agricultural engineer, doctor of geography, honorary professor and director of the chair of comparative agriculture and agricultural development at AgroParisTech
Dominique Marchais, screenwriter and director of Le temps des grâces (2009), La ligne de partage des eaux (2014),
Félix Noblia, breeder and farmer-researcher (Larrous Farm in Bergouey-Viellenave) and vice-president of the association Fermes d’Avenir.
Madina Querre, doctor of anthropology and president of the Biotope Festival in Saint-Emilion (33).
Émilie Rousselou, co-founder with Franck Lépinay of the Spiruline arc-en-ciel Farm and director of the Domaine du Possible University.

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The museum would like to thank
 

Château Haut-Bailly,
patron of honor

Château Cheval Blanc for its generous off-site collaboration, every weekend, during the exhibition, from September 2021 to January 2022.

Fonds d’Initiatives Lafite, sponsor of the exhibition catalogue

The Didier and Martine Primat Foundation and its Fonds Abrité Odonata, for the promotion of agroecology tools, the network of large estates and large farms in transition

We would like to thank the ECAL/Ecole cantonale d'art de Lausanne, its director Alexis Georgacopoulos, the head of the Industrial Design Bachelor Stéphane Halmaï-Voisard, the professors and designers Erwan Bouroullec and Adrien Rovero, along with the second-year students of the Industrial Design Bachelor.

Farrow & Ball loyal partner of the museum

Texaa, for the installation of a high performance acoustic linen covering

Magasins Truffaut, Arto Gorria, Jon Harlouchet, Vincent Pozzer and the Jardin Botanique de Bordeaux for their essential contribution to the implementation of the Gardens in the City

International Flavors & Frangrances (IFF)

DRAC Nouvelle-Aquitaine

The lenders of the exhibition
Association AlVelAl, Barbara Schroeder, Felco, Infaco, Le Plantarium de Gaujacq, L’Atelier Paysan, Musée d’Aquitaine, Musée artisanal et rural (Clion-sur-Seugne), Musée Gaston, Grégor (Salles d’Angles),
Musée Joseph Vaylet (Espalion), Musée des vieux outils (Brie), Pellenc, Puratos and Société Leborgne

The patrons of the Gardens in the city
Gilles Boeuf, Gilles Clément, Odile Fabrègue and Christian Varin, Anne Fischer, Dominique Marchais, Caroline Miquel, Madina Querre, Pierre Rabhi and Philippe Richard

All of those who have contributed to the construction of the exhibition, in the museum and offsite
Le pôle technique de Bordeaux Métropole, le pôle technique du Musée d’Aquitaine, la Direction des espaces verts de Bordeaux
Et plus particulièrement l’entreprise Ufacto

For their fidelity, the museum would also like to thank
Les Amis et le Cercle du madd-bordeaux
Château Nairac
Hôtel Cardinal
InterContinental Bordeaux – Le Grand Hôtel
Keolis Bordeaux Métropole
Les Crus Bourgeois du Médoc
La société de négoce DIVA
Librairie Mollat - Station Ausone

All the farmers and wine growers of the offsite cultural program
Château Cheval Blanc à Saint-Émilion, Château Coutet à Saint-Émilion, Château Guiraud à Sauternes, Château Haut-Bailly à Léognan, Domaine Émile Grelier et La Possiblerie à Lapouyade, Les Jardins Inspirés au Taillan- Médoc, Château l’Évangile à Pomerol, La ferme de Pauline à Lormont, La ferme de Planté à Montpezat, La ferme Idiartea à Bussunarits, La ferme Xemiania à Bégios, La ferme Larrous Bergouey-Viellenave, La ferme de Mikel Esclamadon à Ustaritz, La ferme Yamashita à Chapet, Le domaine du Possible à Arles, Le Domaine des Étangs à Massignac, La ferme du Grand Laval à Montélier, Le domaine de Courances à Courances et Le four à Mi à Cercoux

All the people and associations who have contributed to the success of this exhibition
Chloé Adelheim, Actes Sud, Paul Appert, Association Kokopelli, Damien Baccon, Daniel Barthou, Julien Beauquel, Hélène Beaulieu, Jean-François Berthelot, Biotope Festival du Grand Saint-Émilionnais, Magali Bonniau, Caroline Bourret, Yves Brunier, Isabelle Cartron, Julien Chavepayre, CIVAM Limousin, Sanne Collée, Grégory Combi, Commonland, Joël Couget, Cécile Crès-Brun, Mario Del Curto, Matthieu Demptos, Théo Deutinger, Stéphane Dinard, Damien Doumax, Blandine Dubois, Jean-Bernard Duboscq, Émilie et Bertrand Ducauroy, Alain Dupuy, Sébastien Etchegoyen, Myriam Eymard, Mireille Fontan, Françoise Fournier, Michel Franceschi, Jean-Étienne Frère, Gilles Fumey, Gares & Connexions, Nicolas Gaudé, Yann Gérard, Sophie Gerber, Vladimir Gouthiers, Judith Gross, Philippe Guichard, Patrick Gyger, Marc Henry, Institut culinaire de France, Victor Jacquard, Emilie Jeannin, Renaud Jussaume, Camille Juza, Ewa Kaniowska, Louis Lamour, Morgane Laurent, Le jardin du Noviciat, Les Incroyables Comestibles, Les Possibilistes, Evelyne Leterme, John D. Liu, Danielle Loubot, Stefano Mancuso, Benjamin Maugey, Christien Meinderstma, Baptiste Morizot, Virginie Moulia-Pelat, Marie Papot-Libéral, Emmanuelle Patetsos, Pépinières Le Lann, Alexis Peylhard, Benjamin Poirel, Jocelyne Porcher, Hélène Poulon, Thierry Raphanaud, Réseau INPact Nouvelle-Aquitaine, Réseau Semences Paysannes, Maxime de Rostolan, Jérôme Sabatié, Andreas Schindler, Marc-André Sélosse, François Sézille, Christine Shapiro, Karl de Smedt, Société Insert’Net, Pascal Sondag, Terre & Humanisme, Jean Thoby, Vivien Tornier et Henk Wildschut

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