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Born in Normandy in 2000, French designer Clément Thevenot works at the intersection of art, craft, and design, creating singular objects that challenge the conventional boundaries between functional design and sculptural expression. His multidisciplinary practice is grounded in an experimental approach to materials and making, in which traditional craftsmanship, artisanal processes, and the imagination of the maker remain central.
Thevenot studied at the École Supérieure de Design de Troyes and the Pontifical University of Rio de Janeiro, experiences that continue to inform his expansive approach to design. In 2020, he worked alongside designer Vincent Dubourg, an experience that introduced him to new approaches for thinking through and making objects that extend beyond function and bring vitality and imagination into the spaces they inhabit.
His practice was further shaped by his work within an art foundry, where his interest in material transformation and the relationship between human intervention, tools, and the environment gave rise to Archipel, an ongoing conceptual framework that informs his work. Imagined as an island within a larger archipelago, Archipel proposes an alternative world in which art, craft, and design coexist without hierarchy; where imperfection becomes a source of beauty, machines do not replace the human hand and mind, and materials become active participants in the creative process.
Drawing inspiration from the critical legacy of Radical Design, Thevenot questions the rationality, standardization, and purely functional logic that have traditionally shaped the designed object. Instead, he creates works that inhabit an ambiguous space between art and design. These objects are tactile, poetic, and often deliberately irrational, inviting a more sensory and imaginative relationship with their surroundings.
Through an intuitive and materially driven practice, Thevenot transforms glass, metal, and other elemental materials into works that appear simultaneously familiar and otherworldly. His objects are conceived not simply to serve a function, but to stimulate perception, provoke curiosity, and participate in the collective imagination.
