Each week, Kristen de La Vallière, design curator, editor and founder of say hi to_, asks three questions to our participants. Today Kristen talks with Paris-based designer Pauline Esparon.

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Kristen de la Vallière: There has been a lot of focus on the negative aspects of the circumstances of the past year but we'd love to know how it has positively impacted your practice. How has the past year changed the way you view or run your design practice?

Pauline Esparon: I’ve been experiencing a form of retreat. Although the isolation due to covid was sometimes good for concentration, for focusing, it also raised good questions, which was even more important for me than finding answers. The lack of mobility was perhaps a way to dig deeper roots in the soil. I am working in the countryside and I feel that covid has helped with this idea of sliding from a space to a territory, almost a shelter.

“The lack of mobility was perhaps a way to dig deeper roots in the soil.”

KdlV: What do you think are some of the most important roles of a designer in 2021?

PE: I think a good design is not only a sensitive piece, it is also about the place of this object in the world: what does it take to make it with regards to resources? How does it take a position between the past and the future?

I also think that the collaborative aspect of design can become even more important, since we realise, in contrast to the contagious nature of a pandemic, how sharing is essential. I really value the human meetings that exist behind an object and find that being grateful to contributive processes is key today.

KdlV: How are physical events such as COLLECTIBLE, important for your creative practice?

PE: I am very very attached to materials in their physicality. I think these events are very important because they allow a sensitive experience with the object, beyond images and visuals. This materiality is very key in my design practice. The diversity of pieces is also thought-provoking, as the fair presents different definitions of what contemporary design can be. It is interesting to feel things clashing, or going in the same direction even if they don’t belong to the same gallery… It helps us to wonder, to inspire and to position ourselves as designers.

About Pauline Esparon

Pauline Esparon plays with the notion of ‘rawness’, a form of archaism, a primary state of materials before alteration by industrial standardisation. Starting with investigations of vegetal, animal, and mineral forms of materials, Pauline Esparon questions their culture, heritage, survival and systems before creating a definitive shape.