Rise and Fall of a Decade with Erwan Bouroullec

Hear from the artist and designer as he discuss his latest series of prints 

To honour the exclusive launch of 55 unique edition prints, Erwan Bouroullec talks us through the series from his studio in Burgundy, France. Erwan is well-known for his lighting, product and furniture designs, along with his brother Ronan. The internationally acclaimed duo have co-created iconic work for over two decades. Keep reading to learn more about his latest successive series titled Rise and Fall of a Decade and browse Erwan's other edition collaborations for the Wrong Shop here.

Photography by Philippe Thibault

"Rise and Fall of a Decade is a new group of successive art pieces in two sizes. They are successive because the first one is continued by the second one, then this repeat until the end. Somehow you could understand it as steps recorded one after another. They both use an engine which I coded. The coded rules create attraction in between the elements and somehow repulsion too. The engine is not working by itself, I am inputting the start of every element step by step, somehow it’s a little like painting but with a brush I do not control just after it touched the canvas. All of it is the story of a map growing and evolving, where at the end entropy wins and meanings fall. Rise and Fall.

I don’t want to understand or commit for any kind of statement about the time we live in, because I believe that the world is like an ocean, nothing is stabile, nothing is fixed, many things are predictable but none is predictable in a measurable manner. I more wish to understand movement, understand fluids.

I have been coding again some specific rules for tiny elements, the dots and lines which I named 'the rains'. They are interacting and step by step invading the areas. Somehow they fight a little, but none can reject the other and anyway they have to overlap and share the space. At the beginning the pieces are relatively empty and clear but then the chaos is taking control. My role is just to input some more, therefore trying to reinforce a zone, but in reality it’s like painting with an heavy storm, or a fog.

I can spend time in the countryside, and I can live in Paris like in a jungle. Things move and the world I like to be in is the overlay of signs, sensations, noises, a very bright white noise that make me enjoy being an animal in this jungle. Therefore I try to map the complexity of this world. I'm reminded of a flood in action, or the raise of a fog, or the spreading of information on a wide network.

Rise and Fall of a Decade was an indie rock band in the 80s. I was always intrigued by their name, and maybe I was too unexperienced at the time to be able to build on it. Getting older, middle life crisis, its now much more easy to use the name." Erwan B

You can shop the latest limited edition prints exclusively from the Wrong Shop here now. Thanks to Erwan for taking the time to chat with us. For Erwan's work check out his Instagram @erwanbouroullec. Photos by Philippe Thibault @phil.thib.