Dear visitors, dear colleagues, dear partners,
We are happy to see the international fine craft and creation biennial coming back in 2023. An annual biennial – here is an oxymoron that perfectly fits the current context as well as this edition of Révélations, where visitors will be surprised, shaken up in their certainties.
The 350 exhibitors coming from the entire world will have a heart to unveil unique and bold pieces, with contemporary lines, created especially for this occasion. Each exhibitor is carefully selected by the Artistic Steering Committee, who paid attention to the novelty and innovative nature of the pieces presented.
Crisis after crisis, we felt the need to make fine craft professions even more visible and to convey their fundamental values, based on mankind, on ancient and constantly renewed skills, and on respect for the planet and its resources. The growing taste of the public for fine craft professions resonates with the new aspirations of a society searching for meaning.
* La Saison Africa2020 est organisée et mise en œuvre par l’Institut français avec le soutien du ministère de l’Europe et des Affaires étrangères, du ministère de la Culture, du ministère de l’Éducation nationale, de la Jeunesse et des Sports et en partenariat avec l’Agence Française de Développement. La Saison bénéficie également du soutien du Comité des mécènes d’Africa2020.
Fine craft professionals transform materials, they create beauty, and usefulness. The singular objects they create tell stories, they make our daily lives extraordinary and improve them. They are the result of excellent and internationally recognized skills. Each culture has their own vision of fine craft professions, and Révélations enables professionals from the entire world to exchange, and sometimes confront, in order to go further in their creative research.
For this edition of Révélations, nearly 30 countries are represented and for the first time, we are giving pride of place to a nation: Quebec. Freed from heritage constraints, our “cousins” on the other side of the Atlantic give us an uninhibited vision of their multiple skills, with the avant-garde spirit of this edition of Révélations. We are happy to welcome 34 creators from Quebec and autochthonous communities who will create a fruitful dialogue together and charm the visitors with their fascinating imagination.
This year, Révélations celebrates 10 years of creative effervescence in fine craft professions. The public’s attraction for creations produced in small series, entirely made in art workshops, combining a thought, an act of creation and skills, grows stronger with each edition. Against the flow of an economic vision favoring mass production and disposable objects, fine craft professions bear and guarantee a vision of a society that makes choices for its future, calling to another way to live: restore, preserve, pass down, last!
Stéphane Galerneau,
President of the Revelations exhibition
President of Ateliers d'Art de France
