Domodinamica
Designers

Matali Crasset

Born on July 28th ,1965 in Châlons-en-Champagne. Her parents are farmers and she spent her childhood with her twin sister and her two brothers in Normé, a small village of 80 inhabitants in the Marne. She left Normé to study in Paris, a city she hardly ever left afterwards. After her graduation at Les Ateliers - E.N.S.C.I in 1991, she participated in the Milan Triennial with her project “Domestic Trilogy”, a set of three appliances diffusing warmth - rumours and intimacy -, light - images and memories -, and water - scents and swirls. She stayed in Milan for a while to work with Denis Santachiara on architecture and design projects and on the creation of exhibitions. Back in Paris, she began working with Philippe Starck at his agency and at Thomson Multimedia, where she stayed five years and became head of Thomson’s design centre, Thim Thom. In 1998, she created her own studio, and in 2002, she founded her own company, Matali Crasset productions sarl. \n\nMatali develops a reflection on domestic rituals and on the domestication of technology. She considers it essential to develop experimental projects and to explore new directions. This philosophy feeds and inspires the agency's numerous projects, especially in exhibition design, an activity which allows to constantly try out new types of furniture. Among the companies she has worked with, one could mention: Abaco, Aquamass, Artemide, Authentics, Cristal Saint-Louis, DIM, Domodinamica, Domeau & Perès, Dornbracht, Edra, Gandy Gallery, LaCie, Lexon, Möve, nekt, Néotù, Orangina, Ricard, Seb, s.m.a.k, Thomson Multimedia. \n\nIn 1994, she received a grant from the Sandberg Institute in Amsterdam to develop a street furniture project, “The empathic chair”. In 1996, the V.I.A.'s “carte blanche” programme enables her to develop her domestic office furniture project, “W at hôm”, an evidence of her deep interest in new technologies. In 1997, she was awarded the Grand Prize for Design of the city of Paris, and was chosen by the Sue Ryder Foundation to design the church furniture for the “Maison de Marie” chapel in Lourdes. In 1998, she received a F.I.A.C.R.E. grant from the Ministry of Culture to help her develop her project for an “autogenous design”. In 1999, she was awarded the “Grand Prix de la Presse Internationale de la Critique du Meuble Contemporain”. In 2000 and 2001, she designed a private villa in Nontron in the Dordogne and, together with professionals of the artistic milieu, she imagined “Pol’arisation”, the future furniture for the Experimental Center of Artistic Professions. Also in 2001, the Centre National des Arts Plastiques (National Fine Arts Center) commissioned her to create the design of a carpet for the Mobilier National (National Furniture) and the national tapestry workshops in les Gobelins and Beauvais. \n\nMatali Crasset has worked on numerous exhibitions as a scenography designer. She designed the shows “Paris-Milano” and “Bulb” organized by Intramuros and the exhibition “Wash the future” at the Espace Carole de Bona. She is also the creator of the “Morroccan Bar” of the exhibition “Le Maroc Désorienté” at the Musé des Arts Décoratifs. Furthermore, she has imagined a touring exhibition for the Comité Colbert and the Camif (1999) and designed the “Archilab” show in Orléans (2001), as well as an electronic music show at the Hôtel Sully for the “fê'eate de la musique” (music festival) in 2001. In 2001, she began working with Hermes and designed an exhibition scenography on pleats for the touring exhibition “Plissé between the lines” in the United States. She is now in charge of the scenography for the Hermes exhibition “Cheval, figure d'espaces” in Moscow in 2002. She has designed the “Who's next” shows in 1998 and 2000, as well as the “Première Classe” show in 2000. Since 1999, she is in charge of the “Première Vision” forums. In 2000, she designed the exhibition “Extra trend show: open” for the “Tendence” fair in Frankfurt. In 2002, she created the installation “Casaderme”, the house that breathes, for the Pitti Immagine Uomo show in Florence, and designed the experimental bathroom project “Update/ 3 spaces in one” for Dornbracht, on display at the Ulrich Fieder gallery in Cologne. Matali Crasset is regularly invited to design schools as a visiting lecturer, in France (Ecole des Beaux-arts, Bordeaux and Reims, Les Ateliers, Paris) and abroad (Danmarksdesignskole, Copenhagen, Domus Academy, Milan, Écal, Lausanne, Gerrit Rietveld Academy, Amsterdam). In 2001, she carried trhough her first projects as an interior designer: the advertisement agency Red Cell in Paris, her own house and design studio in Belleville, and a private villa by the lake of Annecy. She also created her first interior design project for a hotel, “hi”, a town hotel which will open in Nice in the fall of 2002. She is currently working on a project for a pigeon house in Caudry in the Nord-Pas-de-Calais. This project was commissioned by the programme “Nouveaux Commanditaires” of the Fondation de France and set up with the help of artconnexion. \n\nSeveral works by Matali Crasset are included in the permanent collections of national museums: \n\nCentre Georges Pompidou - Paris\nFonds Départemental d’art Contempora in de la Seine Saint-denis - Bobigny \nFonds National d’Art Contemporain - Paris\nMinistère des Affaires Etrangères - Paris\nMobilier National et Manufactures nationales des Gobelins et de Beauvais - Paris\nMu.dac - Lausanne Musé des Arts décoratifs - Prague\nMusé du Feutre - Mouzon\nMuseu do Design - collection Francesco Capelo\nLisbonne Museum of Modern Art - New York\nVictoria & Albert Museum - Londres