UTC goes MET art-wise
From November-10 to December 2, in the showroom of the Daniel Thomas Innovation Centre, more than twenty students organised the UTC’s first art exhibition as part of its 50th Anniversary celebrations. The MET, an acronym for ‘On Monte une Exposition Temporaire’ and a clever wink to New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, showcased the multidisciplinary work of UTC students and alumni. When art and engineering find common ground and break down the barriers between disciplines, the MET resonated with the University’s philosophy of openness.
Vivants [Alive], with an s. This was the theme of the first UTC art exhibition, which took place from November 10 to December 2 in the showroom of the Innovation Centre, avenue de Landshut, Compiegne. This theme emerged from the forty or so entries received by the twenty or so students involved in the project. The project was born out of a decisive meeting in July between Samuel Veillerette, Director of the UTC’s new Socio-Economic Partnerships and Entrepreneurship Department (DPSEE or DΨ), launched in May 2023 and Manon Garcia, a 4th year student majoring in Mechanical Engineering and President of the MET association, which was set up in September for the occasion.
Between paintings, drawing, sculpture, photography, embroidery and video, the exhibition revealed the creative diversity of the fifteen or so artists selected and «the pool of students at the UTC who are sensitive to different cultures», emphasises Manon Garcia who, having studied fine arts during her gap year and done a work placement in a cultural production agency in Paris, took on board a whole group trained in project management as part of a dedicated CC course. “Art is not just for the elite,» she continues. Showing that areas that may seem far apart can interact in a festive and playful way also introduces people to other aspects of the human experience. A number of musical and choreographic events and guided tours have also been organised to enhance the discovery of these visual arts.
The joint objective of the DPSEE and the MET is to revitalise the Daniel Thomas Innovation Centre, enabling engineering students to transfer their innovation and project management skills to the cultural environment, and to work towards promoting the arts and culture professions, in particular that of artists from UTC and the Compiegne region. Manon Garcia sees the exhibition as «a contemporary space for reflection, a crash test that is both ephemeral and sustainable, which could lead to a new paradigm for creativity at UTC». The DPSEE and MET plan to capitalise on this first experience, on the technical and regulatory achievements and the contacts that have been made in setting up this project.
Graphic novel and terracotta
One of the guest artists is Paul Boinet, a UTC graduate who has been working as a process and industrial transfer engineer in the pharmaceutical industry for the last ten years or so in Rouen. Although he has been involved in so called “protean art” since the age of 17, the thirty-yearold alumnus had never exhibited before. «To show my work is to lay myself bare and expose myself to criticism. But a work must also be seen by the public. The UTC offers this friendly and benevolent test environment», he explains.
His work on a graphic novel, a kind of comic strip page whose singular dynamic construction blends together drawing and painting in a kind of pictorial poetic renewal form, illustrates the passions that drive us and the possible convergence of disciplines. «The MET offers an interesting dialogue between works of art. It decompartmentalises art and science, opens our eyes to the other and gives us a glimpse of something other than the curriculum we are following or have followed. While I’ve been interested in the phenomenology of visual objects, materials engineering and cognitive science, art opens up your mind and your appetite for other things. I’m quite proud to be exhibiting at UTC, which has been a great highlight of my life and the place where I nurtured this creative urge.»
Valérie Moreau was a research scientist and lecturer in Industrial Engineering at UTC 2008–2022, but is now on leave to devote herself full-time to sculpture, terracotta and bronzes. This alumna, who «thinks she was an artist before she became an engineer» and has been making a living from her art since 2003, already has several exhibitions to her name. Notably with the Galerie Bénédicte Giniaux in Bergerac, whose partnerships have opened up various international contemporary art venues in Paris, Lille, Montpellier, Lyon and Rennes. In October, she moved to the Palais-Lionel Fibleuil gallery in Le Touquet. «Artistic expression, this need to do and say things, has always been with me. Clay was a revelation for me. I think in 3D and that’s how I express myself best.
At the Daniel Thomas Innovation Centre, two imposing sculptures showcased her most recent plastic explorations, hybrid creations based on the living world, in keeping with the theme of this first MET. «Integrating art into engineering school gives us a more sensitive approach and a chance to reconnect with living things. It makes sense. We had been thinking for a long time that the Innovation Centre should be used in this way. The willingness of the students and the new Director of Partnerships to support them contributed to the success of this first exhibition.»