A collaboration between jewelry and glass designer Anne Donzé and glass artist Vincent Chagnon brings us “Déballe ton sac” (Unpack your bag), a collection of unusual blown glass pieces each of which incorporates their individual talents.
Blown Glass Bags by Anne Donzé and Vincent Chagnon
Vincent, a glassblower, trained in Quebec and the Czech Republic, while Anne, a pâte de verre specialist and contemporary jewellery designer, gathered a wide range of experience at the CERFAV (Centre Européen de Recherches et de Formation aux arts verriers) in Vannes-le-Châtel and the Massana School in Barcelona, where she studied contemporary jewellery.
Working together, they have created several collections of containers that tell a story, with comical shapes and names, as well as a critical message, denouncing a society based on excessive consumerism. In these collections, containers and contents form a whole. They achieve their wish to combine their two respective techniques, each having learned something about the other’s.
Créations Collection «Déballe ton sac»
Pieces in The Collection
[Sac]crocher à la vie
Literally translated as [Bag] Hook To Life, this piece of blown glass in the shape of an empty plastic bag complete with fish hook serves as a hanging fishbowl.
Le Sac (Fishbag)
With out the hook and in various colors, Les Sacs can serve as tabletop vases, planters or fish bowls:
Sacré Ange, Sacré Démon (Sacred Angel, Sacred Demon):
Dos A Dos (Back to Back):
S’acheter une image pré établie (Buy a Pre-established Image):
Baise en Ville (Fuck Town):
The Artists’ Statement (Note: the English translation below is a little rough and contains errors):
Bag: n.m; a flexible packaging designed to contain or protect something.
Etymologically, packaging means putting in bags, an operation that requires grouping goods, items and properties in bags. Until the end of 18th century, people made use of what they could find for packaging – the materials which nature offered: wood, cork, leather, clay, fibers. By 1500 BC, the Egyptians had discovered glass and were making glass bowls. Glass is a material whose first function is to contain. Then man evolved the bag according to his needs in society. Now the bag serves to consolidate, to protect and to keep.
Although it became essential, the packaging could lead man to his own loss. Without knowing, the man even puts himself in a bag… As in a compartment that is a reflection of a society, trends and contemporary images.
The bag is a means of transportation of the imagination and thought.
Let us wrap our thoughts, without forgetting to unpack our bag.
The packaging is a protection of the close friend. It hides, generally, its contents against inquisitive looks: keeping inside the deepest feelings.
Tell me what you carry and I would tell you whom you are…
Show me your bag, I shall tell you whom you are….
The packaging, due to its marketing, becomes more important than what it contains.
If the packaging is the reason, the contents would be the drive. Human drives, social drives, loving drives, which life can contain.
The bag as an identity would protect these drives.
The original artists statement in French can be found here
Recently, in 2014, Anne and Vincent were selected as winners of the second edition of the Ateliers d’Art de France Foundation’s Work Award for their project Build (Dingue). BUILD (Dingue) is a city of glass cubes inside of which live frosted glass representations of people and narratives (much like Dos A Dos in the project shown here). In the video below, the artist discuss BUILD (Dingue)
photos by Francois Golfier, images and info courtesy of Anne Donze and Vincent Chagnon and The Ateliers d’Art de France Foundation
Déballe Ton Sac (Unpack Your Bag) Collection at the Arts Galerie”
