This workshop offers an in-depth exploration of recycled cardboard, considered as a genuine material for artistic creation. It is led by Marie-Anne Thieffry, a visual artist renowned for her unique "cardboard lace" technique. Combining intensive practice, technical learning, and artistic reflection, this workshop allows participants to explore a material that is at once simple, poetic, and brimming with potential.

Upon completion of the training, the trainee will be able to:

• Select a cardboard piece according to the desired creation
• Create flat cardboard lace
• Create three-dimensional cardboard lace
• Create a template for laminated cardboard and reproduce it on cardboard
• Assemble a piece using laminated cardboard
• Finish the various creations

From the very beginning of the course, participants discover the many facets of cardboard: its different forms, physical properties, contemporary artistic uses, and ecological benefits. Through hands-on exercises, they learn to work with this material with precision, creativity, and sensitivity.

Part of the program is dedicated to working with light, a central element in the artistic universe of Marie-Anne Thieffry. Trainees experiment with effects of shadow, transparency, and diffusion in order to design pieces that subtly interact with light and reveal the delicacy of cardboard.

The instructor’s teaching approach favors experimentation, based on exploration, freedom of gesture, and creative autonomy. The course also encourages reflection on the challenges of eco-design and the revalorization of recycled materials, from a contemporary perspective on arts and crafts professions.

Day 1

Morning

• Introduction and discovery of the material
• Discussion of each participant’s aspirations
• Work on gestures and cutting techniques
• Learning the flat cardboard lace technique and creating a sample

Afternoon

• Observation and use of cardboard and corrugation in different ways
• 2 hours dedicated to a collective creation for Campus Mana

Day 2

Morning and Afternoon

• Finishing the samples previously created
• Beginning the lighting project using the technique introduced the day before
• 2 hours dedicated to a collective creation for Campus Mana

Day 3

Morning:

• Completion of the lighting project

Afternoon:

• Tracing the template on laminated cardboard
• 2 hours dedicated to a collective creation for Campus Mana

Day 4

Morning

• Cutting and gluing the laminated cardboard piece

Afternoon

• Finishing the cardboard lace light fixture
• 2 hours dedicated to a collective creation for Campus Mana

Day 5

Morning and Afternoon

• Finishing the laminated cardboard piece
• Finishing the various samples
• 2 hours dedicated to a collective creation for Campus Mana
• Workshop clean-up

Marie-Anne Thieffry

Marie-Anne Thieffry is a visual artist born in 1964 in Normandy. After a first career of over 25 years as an art director in advertising, she chose in 2005 to devote herself entirely to handcrafted creation, founding her own studio.

A graduate of ESAG-Penninghen and ENSAAMA-Olivier de Serres in interior architecture, she now applies her expertise to a material she reinvents with poetic flair: recycled cardboard. Through a unique technique she calls "cardboard lace," she explores the expressive potential of this humble material, which she cuts, crumples, braids, or glues together to create sculptures and light fixtures imbued with lightness and refinement.

Sensitive to environmental issues, her work is rooted in a process of repurposing discarded materials, where each piece explores our relationship to matter, gesture, and light. Inspired by architects such as Frank Gehry and Shigeru Ban, she combines technical rigor, creativity, and a commitment to sharing knowledge.

Winner of the Audience Award at the International Paper Triennial in 2017 and the European Prize for Applied Arts in 2022, Marie-Anne Thieffry also receives support from the Rémy Cointreau Foundation, which contributed to the acquisition of essential equipment for her studio.

• Classroom, multipurpose room, workshops with professional equipment
• Materials provided
• Individual and collaborative work
• Workshop sessions
• Active participation and experimentation by participants are encouraged

• Group and individualized monitoring of work, regular check-ins
• Self-assessment of technical skills
• Group presentation
• Attendance sheet for each half-day
• Certificate of completion issued by Campus MaNa