"The ubiquitous plastic waste in our environment is an innovative and inspiring raw material."
Artist and designer, Johé Bruneau belongs to the international collective Precious Plastic. Their project is to develop open source machines for recycling plastic on a local scale. An ambassador for this movement, the artist has made recycled plastic his preferred medium. His works take the form of manifest objects, combining artisanal know-how and low-tech technologies. Each one depicts the complexity of environmental issues in a poetic and engaged dimension.
Son of the sculptor Alain Bruneau, I graduated in 2014 from the DMA Sculpture on Synthetic Materials at the ENSAAMA ( Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Arts Appliqués et des Métiers d'Art ), I approach the work of sculpture, modelling and moulding. These techniques allow me to work on projects in cinema, scenography and the restoration of sculpted works.
I am attached to the work of the material, to the craft skills. I perfected my casting technique in the workshops of the RMN (Réunion des Musées Nationaux) as well as with the bronze artist Candide. We worked together on the design and production of furniture and lighting exhibited at the Grand Palais' Révélations show in 2015 and 2017. Our collaboration as a young designer and master craftsman earned us second place in the 2016 Rotary Club Award.
However, I notice that there is a growing gap between these heritage values of the past and our contemporary society. This will be the subject of my DSAA dissertation, 'Reconsidering the authentic object of today'. I question my practice as well as the use of this term (authentic), which has been widely misused to serve a nostalgic consumerism of an outdated past. In reaction, I am interested in the revalorisation and recycling of industrial waste (electric cables, glass, aluminium, plastic). They become for me new mediums allowing me to revisit different skills: basketry, direct cutting, casting, moulding...
It is in this dynamic that I met the Dutch designer Dave Hakkens, who has made plastic recycling his hobbyhorse. Since 2014 he has been developing machines to recycle plastic on a local scale. The project is called Precious Plastic, everything is open source, the plans of the machines are distributed for free on the internet as well as a whole series of tutorial videos to teach anyone step by step how to set up their own recycling workshop. Joining the collective, I contribute to the elaboration of some of these videos but also to the creation of artistic objects for the Dutch Design Week 2017 and the Milan Design Fair in 2018.
Our leitmotiv is to challenge the prevailing pejorative preconceptions about this material and to make people aware that the ubiquitous plastic waste in our environment can be seen as an innovative and inspiring raw material.
Since November 2017, I have set up my workshop in Saint Etienne (42), representing Precious Plastic in France and abroad, I work independently or in collaboration in different countries, to help create new workshops, give courses or as a consultant. I also develop moulds and custom-made pieces on demand. At the same time I develop a more personal work of revalorization by the creation of art objects, going from the unique piece to the edition in small series.