Envie/Alive

Just opened in Paris is the Envie/Alive exhibition curated by Carole Collet which explores issues around synthetic biology. The exhibition begins with a statement  'A quiet revolution is happening. A new breed of designer has begun to reshape our world by re-orchestrating our relationship to nature'. Most of the work is not new, but it is for the first time that it is all under one roof.

Showing the likes of Emile de Vischer's pearling and Amy Congdon's biological atelier it also explores the work of architects and designers who are exploring the bio-engineered world.

Presenting a new design landscape with a glimpse to our synthetic future and a new ecological consideration the exhibition groups them under 5 headings

1/ The Plagiarists: (Nature as a model) those who look to nature to engineer man made and digital solutions.

2/ The New Artisans: (Nature as a co-worker) - those designers who are collaborating with nature to craft future consumer goods

3/ The Bio-Hackers: (Reprogrammed, ‘synthetic’ nature) designers working with synthetic biologists and who are engineering living organisms for a possible hybrid future

4/ The New Alchemists: (Hybridised nature) combining biological and chemical (non living) technology these designers merge robotics, chemistry and biology

5/ The Agents Provocateurs: (Conceptualised and imagined nature.) Pushing the boundaries to the extreme these designers explore the ethics around living technology as well as high-tech sustainability.

Alongside the exhibition ‘En Vie-Alive’ is hosting 4 designers and architects who are already working with synthetic biology or tissue engineering and has them set up in a lab style scenario showing the new tool kit for designers of the future - DNA and bacteria.