WORK / LIVE 干活 Paris-Gonesse

With Antoine Agudze, Jacky Brogniart, Daniel Cadioux, Azzedine Cherif, Mohammed Cherif, Loïc Cuvillier, Bakary Cissé, Michel Duvocelle, L.F, Bruno Fortin, Jan Jarosz, Frédéric Manchon, Nathalie Marcos and Ahmed Touzi. Conceived by Blandine de La Taille.

Bringing a tool to the point of standardisation can take time. Today its development is usually formalised through continuous improvement, the field rewarded every year by the Kaizen Awards. Inspired by exchanges in the production workshop, our research focused on tools assembled in the factory that escaped this protocol: unique, non-standard pieces made by the people who use them, as close as possible to their needs. Only the craftsman can shape his own tool.

These objects connect us with an ancient, practical and intuitive reflex that still lives in some trades. Often made with whatever is at hand, often for lack of anything better, these ingenious and deeply personal hacks stand out in a standardised industrial landscape. From the knowing hand to creative invention, this constant work of adjustment reveals the intimate bond between workers and the material they shape.

Manufactura offers a typology of these discreet innovations: personal sleights of hand in front of the machine, the memory of everyday inventors.