577 chairs: the citizen's hemicycle

A monumental installation at the heart of the cour d'honneur of the Musée des Archives nationales, like a manifesto for democracy, to be discovered during Paris Design Week.

Designers Claire Renard and Jean-Sébastien Blanc, co-founders of 5.5, are proposing a monumental installation: a hemicycle made up of 577 unique, reused chairs, in partnership with leboncoin.

The Festival du Monde has been working with Claire Renard and Jean-Sébastien Blanc for the past four years. The designers created an original scenography for the forecourt of the newspaper's bridge-building in Austerlitz, using waste from Le Monde's printing plant. Transforming the site into a festive "village square".

Le Festival du Monde also co-publishes with the design duo a series of meaningful objects, presented and marketed during Paris Design Week, such as these 577 chairs.

577 chairs, like the number of seats in our National Assembly.

577 chairs humanized by designers, like 577 citizens' voices.

577 chairs marked with 577 words that question notions of freedom and democracy, from "mixité" to "combat", from "paix" to "république".

The hemicycle will be installed in the courtyard of honor of the Musée des Archives Nationales, which houses the original text of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, from September 4 to 13, during Paris Design Week.

In reaction to our democracies under attack, this cloud of words and faces is there to challenge, to become a place for exchange and dialogue, to keep our freedoms alive.

Pioneers of upcycling, Claire Renard and Jean-Sébastien Blanc use this project to promote militant design that seeks to raise awareness and convey meaning. The designer becomes an actor of change in our society.

To ensure that this citizen hemicycle is anything but ephemeral, and that visitors can take a piece of it home with them, each of the chairs making it up is being auctioned by Drouot Estimations on the Drouot.com website.

The designers

Claire Renard and Jean Sébastien Blanc

These two designers, who founded the 5.5 collective, pioneers of upcycling and now experts in the field, are constantly reinforcing their convictions and their union of over 20 years.

Today, this duo of contrarian designers is committed to degrowth design as a means of slowing down the world. This commitment is more necessary than ever, given the acceleration of our consumption patterns and the inconsistencies of our frenetic society, which has no choice but to reinvent itself.