Inside Out

Techniques are elaborated and established procedures that, on day to day, help to produce planned specific outcomes. As they have proven their efficiency in their predictability, they became an establishment, be it in material, technical, or intellectual fields. Yet, such accurate forecasting leaves little room for the unex- pected and, in its solidity, generates margins where lay the overlooked. Wendy Andreu is a designer that looks into these procedural gaps. She turns techniques over, bends processes in, flips methods inside out, and lets them speak for themselves. The results, while highly elaborated, often testify of a sur- prising simplicity while the designs in which they are crystalized always speak of the unexpected. Throughout the exhibition, Andreu proposes rooms elaborated around material and technical principles that she has been exploring throughout the past years. While the setting suggests familiar dwelling typologies, the pieces presented take on a subversive approach that bring us to question how the details of the daily are defined and produced. “Inside Out” reflects Andreu’s active and applied querying of techniques, assembling a body of experimental works that, while turning literally over materials, also asks from the visitor some kinds of mental gymnastics. Through a subtle dialogue between technique and design, the work of Andreu forces to reconsider the permanence of crafts’ inheritance in order to dive into exploratory processes and seek out new potentials. By challenging these material traditions, Andreu presents us with a new design practice: the designer of crafts.