ROSA B is a web magazine conceived and co-produced by the EBABX – École d’Enseignement Supérieur d’Art de Bordeaux, and the CAPC musée d’art contemporain de Bordeaux. ROSA B is dedicated to research and reflection, and tackles current issues of artistic creation and design. Each new issue of this online magazine takes specificities of the digital medium into account. In its form and content, it uses a multidisciplinary approach, mixing texts and theoretical contributions with visual and sound productions. Each issue of ROSA B is devoted to a defined theme chosen and decided upon by an editorial board.
ROSA B 5: Environnement et design, conceived by Peio Aguirre and Jeanne Quéheillard, deals with relations between the environment and design following the Aspen conference in 1970.
Around 1970, in France and on an international level, in all industrialized countries, the environment became a primordial question. Debates aiming to define principles and ways of approaching the issue gave rise to theoretical and conceptual tension. They crystallized the economic and political problems born of the connection taking shape between modernity and nature. In France in 1968 the Ministère des Affaires Culturelles founded the Institut de l’Environnement, a center for education and research proposing a new approach to teaching urban planning, architecture, design and communication, in response to new challenges intrinsic to a “sensitive environment.”
In 1970, the IDCA (the International Design Conference in Aspen) presented a program called Environment by design. In response to an invitation by the IDCA, the French delegation, led by designer Roger Tallon, took a position through a declaration written by Jean Baudrillard. The French delegation’s declaration, in association with the reactions and demonstrations of students and environmental activists at the conference, marked a turning point for the Aspen meetings. In 2008 at Gasworks in London, the artist Martin Beck drew inspiration from these events with the title of his exhibition, Panel 2: “Nothing like a touch of ecology and catastrophe to unite the social classes…” By using elements of the 1970 Aspen conference and staging a reading of the French delegation’s text in a forest in Aspen, Martin Beck’s installation gives us the opportunity, 40 years later, to grasp the significance of this historical reference and to bring it back into play. Beck’s interest in questions of historicity and their visual representation allows us to put debates around environmental issues back into the context of their beginnings while at the same time, through a replaying of modernist elements, the denouement of modernism and new confrontations resulting from postmodernism are brought up to date.
Issue no. 5 of ROSA B takes the form of an archive, updating historical documents that put current debates on the fabrication of the environment into perspective. A conversation with artist Martin Beck on his project, Panel 2… and on the methods used for his artistic research, including historical treatments; the documentary film Aspen 1970, directed by Eli Noyes and Claudia Weill; memories of Aspen as recounted by certain members of the French delegation; Gilles de Bure’s article Les sommets d’Aspen written for CREE magazine; Benjamin Tong’s interview of Sheila Levrant de Breteville on the construction of the The Special Edition of Aspen Times put together by students at CalArts in Los Angeles in 1971 and archived for ROSA B; an interview with Monique Eleb on the founding of the Institut de l’Environnement and its challenges, along with documents published at the time all enable us to better grasp the current history of relations between the environment and ecology. From the point of view of Jean Baudrillard’s declaration and the context of the ’70s, sociologist Pierre Lascoumes puts ambiguities regarding green ecology and sustainable development in industrial production into perspective. Industry makes this a primordial issue with which designers are confronted. From sustainable development to greenwashing, the limits are fuzzy and constantly shifting.