Matter as language: what objects carry within them
Tuesday 08 Sep 2026 from 7pm to 8pm
Free on booking
Talk in english
Extraction residues, palm fiber, clay: How do these materials become a living archive, and how do they foster a dialogue with contemporary creation at the intersection of design and art?
Far from being mere media, the materials brought together in Life of Forms function as living archives. This idea is echoed by anthropologist Tim Ingold, for whom an artifact always reflects its maker’s relationship to the world they inhabit, and by theorist Jane Bennett and her concept of “vibrant matter,” according to which non-human elements actively participate in the ecological systems around us.
This event brings together Dushyant Bansal and Priyanka Sharma (Studio Raw Material), designers and residents of the AlUla 2024 design residency program, Kevin Rouff (Studio ThusThat) and Paul Moustapha Ledron, designers and residents of the AlUla 2025 design residency program, in conversation with Dominique Petit-Frère, curator and co-founder of Limbo Accra, exploring matter as a vehicle for memory, transformation, and creation. Through projects such as Studio ThusThat’s Harrat (copper slag transformed into facade tiles), Paul Ledron’s use of palm fiber in Lafiya, and Studio Raw Material’s research on mining residues, they explore how materials often considered secondary become the starting point for new narratives.
Talk moderated by Emily Marant, associate curator of the exhibition and founder of Studio Marant.