Issue 10, Plus Connect

Ronan Bouroullec

Condition and Continuum

Words ALISA LARSEN

Photography LEE WHITTAKER

Ronan Bouroullec speaks about his work in terms of movement. Periods close, new ones open. Objects leave the studio and enter other lives. An exhibition becomes a way of rearranging the past so that something else can begin. Recently, he has been revisiting nearly three decades of projects through a growing digital archive — not as a monument, but as a tool. The gesture feels less retrospective than transitional. In conversation, he returns repeatedly to the idea of continuity without repetition: a practice in motion, attentive to setting, light, and atmosphere, always adjusting its position without settling into a fixed shape.

ALISA LARSEN You’ve been revisiting 35 years of work through a growing digital archive. Where did that impulse come from — to look back, to organise, to open the boxes again?

RONAN BOUROULLEC I’ve been lucky several times in my life to have big exhibitions where you put almost everything you’ve done at different times into one place. The first was in 2002 at the Design Museum in London, then at the Centre Pompidou, and later in Chicago. What I like in those situations is that you are like the director of a movie. You decide how you play with your actors, with the different characters. For me, it’s a way to close a period. When a process or project comes to a close, it means you can concentrate on the next. It’s like when you change your apartment — it was a phase of your life, and then you enter a new one.

Today, there are pictures of work everywhere. I wanted a sort of document, a platform where everything is organised. It’s a tool. Before a meeting, I go on this platform to find something to share — a detail, a colour, a form that could spark something. It’s a toolbox. And yes, maybe also something that remains if I die tomorrow on my bicycle.

AL Is it only practical, or also emotional?

RB It’s both. I’m not someone who is content with what I’ve done, so this doesn’t bring a particular sense of satisfaction or celebration. I feel a bit like someone always chasing something I can almost grasp, but never do. I did a lot of things in my time — maybe too many – and what this archive shows is all of these different directions, and perhaps, some unexpected connections.

What is interesting is that AI generates the first part of the scroll. It creates links between pictures — colour, context, form, material — from almost three decades. In French, we call that the fil rouge, the red thread. Maybe it’s that. I don’t consciously search for links when I work. It’s more of a continuous process. But through sorting, something does appear.

AL You once described boarding “a train” at 15.

RB Yes. I entered the applied arts school at 15. Since then, I have been on this train. I forgot to get off. Somehow it continues, by chance, to run. The beginning was difficult. I never worked for anybody. It was a very personal research way of working. Sometimes I feel a bit like an imposter. I was very bad at school. I got my diploma with great difficulty. Even now, I joke that I hide my disorganization from assistants who come fresh from design academies. But this doubt — never being quite satisfied — it’s the only way for me to continue working seriously. If you are satisfied, you tend to repeat yourself.

AL So, doubt is productive?

RB It’s a temperament. You can describe creative activity in two opposite ways. If you take Picasso, he produced ceramics, sculpture, and painting, always confronting new situations. If you take Mondrian, he needed a year to position one line. Both are valuable. I’m probably more the first way.

I like the open project — a spoon, a teapot, a chair, reproduced by hundreds of thousands. There is no hierarchy. A cheap glass for everyday life or a spectacular vase made slowly by hand — it’s the same question. It’s more about the way you use it and for what purpose.

AL You often describe yourself as an actor or character in projects. What is it about stepping into someone else’s shoes that intrigues you?

RB I try to be myself, but I enjoy changing faces. To try on roles. One day, I would work with a craftsman in Japan, inventing a language rooted in technique and slowness. The next day, I would refine a chair that will be produced by hundreds per day. Design is a subject of service. You serve the company, you serve the people who will use the object. Working for someone like Hay is about accessibility and price. Working with craft is about something else — preserving knowledge, inventing new forms within fragile traditions. I like moving between those roles. It’s a profound pleasure.