Low-tech therefore sets out to rediscover technologies that are sometimes forgotten but still make sense, to propose solutions and a desirable future, in a world whose resources are not infinite.

Could we take a look back at your background as a designer and the specifics of your studio, Bold?

I co-founded the Bold agency with William Boujon, whom I met at the École Supérieure d'Art et de Design (ESAD) in Reims. During an Erasmus residency in the Netherlands, we began to develop the idea of collaborating together. Before bringing this project to fruition, we each had our own professional experiences, with the Mathieu Lehanneur office in my case. Then we really started out as an agency in Paris in 2009. Our approach at Bold is above all to take into account a range of real constraints in order to come up with coherent, appropriate solutions, and above all projects that are aligned with our values in terms of innovation, social and environmental responsibility. The two of us are quite complementary; I'm a bit more conceptual and deal with communications in particular, while William has a more technical background, he's very comfortable in the workshops and with everything to do with project development.

The notion of low-tech is important in your approach, could you tell us about this dimension of your work?

This is a field we're very interested in, indeed. We can define low-tech as a set of techniques that are accessible, easily appropriated and sustainable. They are of great interest to certain engineers, who will, for example, move away from cutting-edge technologies and inescapable automation. Because we realize today that this has its limits, if only from the point of view of energy expenditure, at a time when we're talking about the Anthropocene. So low-tech is about rediscovering technologies that are sometimes forgotten but still make sense, to propose solutions and a desirable future, in a world whose resources are not infinite. For example, we ourselves took part in a project that involved rediscovering how to store food with so-called "passive refrigerator" systems, i.e. pantries that can preserve food without being supplied with energy.

For us, machines are tools that must accompany humans.

What role does new technology play in your work, and how does it relate to this low-tech aspect?

To prototype "passive refrigerators", we actually use 3d printers, in this case at 8 Fablab in the Drôme, the region where I now live. This allows us to obtain things that we can't create by hand. For us, machines are tools that must accompany the human. We also develop projects using high technologies, which we use with hindsight and sparingly. We collaborate also with an agency in the Drôme called entreautre, which recovers electronic waste to turn it into other functional objects. It is indeed difficult to do without these objects today, but we can nevertheless work with them in other ways, in a short circuit.

As part of Design Week Mexico, you were put in touch with basket-maker Cirilo Martinez, from the Querétaro region. Can you tell us about this encounter?

We were welcomed on site by the French Embassy and the Design Week Mexico team, but also by other organizations that also co-financed this initiative. We were able to immerse ourselves in the local culture, visiting markets, museums and other notable architectural features. Afterwards, we were able to meet basket-maker Cirilo Martinez, with whom we had been "matched" in advance because of our interest in natural fiber. In his workshop, Cirilo and seven other craftsmen produce traditional baskets. The time we spent together was fairly short, but fortunately we already had a fairly precise idea in mind. So I told him about a furniture collection on the theme of the encounter between France and Mexico.

You've made four stools and a picnic table entitled Apéro. Could you introduce us to these pieces?

The notion of Apéro refers to those moments of informal meeting, which the French appreciate so much, and we also wanted to make a nod to the fact that part of social life in Mexico takes place in the public space, directly on the street. So together we created stools and a more hybrid element that could be used as a pan , table or tray. During our visit, we were also struck by the ubiquity of plastic furniture, which incidentally surrounds artisans who work with much more traditional materials. So the idea was to take inspiration from these objects, which are often made of plastic, but to make them using natural, renewable materials that already exist locally.

What skills did you discover on this occasion?

Cirilo quickly latched on to our idea, and we immediately set about trying things out, which gave me a better understanding of his technique, its possibilities and its limits. Through this exchange, it then became clearer through drawing, then 3d, and I was able to dissect all the constituent elements of each object, so that I could communicate to him remotely all the elements he needed. This time of observation and exchange was important, and means that today I know a lot more about his basket-making technique.

Would you like to add anything about this experience in Mexico? About your upcoming projects?

Today, the Design Week team is trying to see whether we can go further than producing prototypes for the exhibition, and whether we might consider publishing and selling them. This raises the question of what would be involved in producing and selling them in Mexico, or on the contrary here in France. Especially as we've been thinking about a very local design.