Dezeen promotion: Biennale Internationale Design Saint-Etienne has revealed the programme for this year's event, which will feature exhibitions focused on new ways of working.
Now in its 10th edition, the Biennale Internationale Design Saint-Etienne is set to take place from 9 March to 9 April 2017.
This year, the month-long event will expand beyond the walls of the old Manufacture d'Armes of Saint-Etienne, and will turn the district into a large-scale "territory of experimentation".
Olivier Peyricot, the director of the Research Center of the Cité du Design, is curating an exhibition that will offer visitors a panorama of shifting work paradigms.
Named Working Promesse, this main showcase will be presented in 10 stages as part of a trail that loops around the Cité du Design site, located in the Manufacture-Plaine-Achille creative district.
It will focus on the effects of digital labour and new environments, like co-working spaces and creative "fablabs". The aim is to forecast the future organisation of workspaces.
"An experiment on third places will provide pointers towards new ways of working liable to reinvent a whole area of the organisation of work in our society," said Peyricot.
"We will see how science-fiction authors and designers seize upon the theme and put it into perspective, critically or otherwise."
As part of the trail, French artist Didier Faustino's exhibition will transport the visitor on a journey into the future, to provide an alternate vision of work.
The city of Detroit will be this year's guest city of honour. As a member of the UNESCO City of Design, like Saint-Etienne, and guest of honour, it will present its experience as a resilient area.
Other stages along the trail include a modelled part of an office building designed for 1,000 employees in a creative industry.
The ESADSE, short for École Supérieure d'Art et Design de Saint-Étienne, will also present 15 project proposals.
Visit the event website for more details.