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Alexandre Bettler’s Bread Friend map @ RCA’s Gradual event

the show
Gradual features work that has been given the time and space to evolve by its creators, slowly and steadily. It reveals the process of design – the physical act of creating – through generating and experimenting rather than finishing and polishing the work. To facilitate this, the exhibition space has been transformed into a temporary laboratory for the gradual development of ideas and processes, offering visitors the chance to engage directly with the designer as the work is conceived and executed.




The Bread Friend Map is part of the Bread Workshops which is trying to use bread to improve communication.
It is based on the French word for friend, ‘copain’, describing someone you share your bread with. Co-’ standing for ‘with’ and ‘-pain’ for ‘bread’, a friend is someone you share your bread with, and is the level of communication explored for this project. For Gradual, each visitor is offered a slice of a single piece two meter long rye bread, everyone sharing a slice of the same bread. In return, you are asked to add a sticker with your name on yourself and one on the Bread Friend Map, and to trace (dotted line) the link to anyone you know on the map. This will show your connection to other people who you shared the bread with. If there is anyone you fancy, find his/her name on the sticker s/he is wearing and use the map to connect to her/him or any other visitor in the room, everyone being the friend of a friend. The shorter the bread goes, the bigger the map becomes and more friends there are.
Curated by Martino Gamper, London Design Festival, September 2007