SMARIN

SMARIN

Scenographer

Stéphanie Marin lives and works in Nice.

In 1990, she developed a textile recycling project between Amsterdam, Hamburg and Barcelona.
Five years later, she created the “Habits Magiques” clothing line, versatile structures, in natural materials and artisanal dyes. In 2003, she extended her research to design and habitat. She created the Livingstones pebble cushions and founded the studio smarin.

For more than 15 years, smarin has been designing, developing and distributing design projects in the fields of furniture, scenography and space planning, all over the world. One of the peculiarities of smarin is its transversal approach : the studio integrates the functions of design, production and distribution. The creative process is as much about the aesthetics of the creations as it is about using healthy materials at the fairest production scale. All of its objects and devices are designed and manufactured in France, at the smarin workshop.

The studio collaborates with architects, artists, craftsmen and personalities who broaden its practice. smarin explores different fields of creation linked to use from object-tools and furniture-systems. They invite us to reconsider the mechanisms of gestures and to propose new therapeutic automatisms. Today, smarin’s projects are broadcast in more than 150 countries around the world, always in the spirit of functional, healthy and aesthetic research, inseparable from its choices of production, image and distribution.

Stéphanie Marin has developed more than 250 large-scale projects in various sectors such as cultural institutions – theaters, museums, galleries, media libraries, the luxury hotel sector, shopping centers and airports. The studio’s collaborations are numerous and diverse, ranging from the world of luxury – Chanel, Choppard or Louis Vuitton – to that of international companies such as Google, Eurocopter or Vilebrequin and to strong personalities such as the navigator Jean-Pierre Dick, the chef starred Mauro Colagreco, designers Sebastian Bergne or Marco Ferreri or artists Céleste Boursier-Mougenot, Yto Barrada or Cyril Atef…

Artistic collaborations and inspirations

Stéphanie Marin regularly collaborates with visual artists such as Céleste Boursier-Mougenot in 2015 for her solo exhibition at the Palais de Tokyo and the revolutions project, presented at the French Pavilion for the 56th Venice Biennale. In 2017, she designed the barricade installation at Documenta (Kassel, Germany). The Geological Salon created with four hands with the artist Yto Barrada is presented in numerous institutions in the USA, Italy and Monaco. For the 2018 edition of Art Basel, on the occasion of the artistic commission of Audémars Piguet, Stéphanie Marin offers the Barricade scenography as a framework for a work by the English duo Semiconductor.

In 2017, for the performance project on sChaise, Bounce Station Live, studio smarin integrated a filmmaker, a choreographer, a journalist, a composer and a contemporary dance group into its team. This performance was presented at the Center Georges Pompidou (2018) and at the Palais de Tokyo in December 2019, among others. It opened Wanted Design, New York in 2019 with a concert by Cyril Atef.

In 2019, Stéphanie Marin invites conceptual artist Jean Dupuy to play with Sign System, a game of signs, writing and language that she designed. Stéphanie Marin’s creations are present in many cultural institutions such as the MAK museum in Vienna, the Cité Radieuse Le Corbusier in Marseille, the Malmö Museer in Sweden, the CIAM museum in Andore, the Aubette 1928 in Strasbourg, the Abattoirs de Toulouse, the Imiloa Astronomical Center museum in Hawaii, the Lenbachhaus Museum in Munich, the Reattu museum in Arles, the Museo delle Scienze in Trento, the National Nouveau Musée of Monaco, the MAMAC and the Villa Arson in Nice or recently at the Center Georges Pompidou, at the Cobra Museum in Amsterdam, at the Carmignac Foundation in Porquerolles, at the Centre National de la Danse in Pantin, at the FRAC Grand Large in Dunkirk and at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris.

Stéphanie Marin explores with Inside Matisse, a device she designs inspired by Henri Matisse’s workshop, the colors and patterns dear to the artist as well as questions about the plane and the movement.

Therapeutic and mechanical research

In 2012, smarin started to explore in more depth our gestural movements within our everyday routines. These observations have been able to identify bad habits which cause wear and tear to our bodies. Changing these habits and using good practice will lead us to develop a conscious state of awareness and well-being. This research of therapeutic and mechanical objects is the result of a meeting between smarin and the Observatoire des Médecines Non-Conventionnelles (OMNC) in Nice. It is based on simple techniques that encourage a good mechanical use of the body and deepen self-awareness. smarin offers the following products :

  • sChaise, dynamic seat
  • sifflu, an object that approaches complete breathing
  • kairos, a lighting installation that enters in the practice of ‘cardiac coherence’
  • nap bar, perfect for a recovering nap

As part of her research on the sChair as a mechanical therapeutic tool, Stéphanie Marin invites movement specialist Lyse Gladieux to design series of simple exercises to be performed on the sChaise. In 2021, Massimo Fusco asked her to create the scenography for SOUND BODIES and SOUND BODIES FOR KIDS.