What if bread became a creative material?

This workshop offers the opportunity to discover bread as a creative medium, at the crossroads of craft, design, and visual arts.

Using traditional baking techniques, participants will learn to transform bread dough into a medium for artistic expression, a living and evolving material to shape, sculpt, or assemble.

Over four days of experimentation, each participant will explore the material of bread, from kneading to baking, culminating in the final assembly, to create a personal artwork integrated into a collective creation: a sculptural bread screen.

The workshop combines technical approach, artistic research, and collaborative work, inviting each participant to develop a sensitivity to gesture, form, and the transformation of matter.

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

• Make sourdough bread, understand the different stages of fermentation, and master the shaping of various types of bread
• Use different bread decorating techniques and adapt recipes and processes according to the desired uses
• Identify the technical and plastic properties of the main flours (color, texture, strength, malleability, etc.)
• Design and create a bread object, from the initial sketch to the finished product, including baking and assembly
• Experiment with bread as a plastic material, through practices such as marquetry or bread sculpture
• Preserve bread creations over time by applying a protective natural coating

This workshop offers a chance to discover bread as an artistic and decorative material, not just as food.

Through a practical and experimental approach, participants will learn how baking techniques can become creative tools for artists and designers.
Guided by Studio CoPain, participants will learn to shape, decorate, assemble, and preserve objects made from bread.

The workshop will culminate in the creation of a collaborative artwork: a sculptural bread screen composed of several modular panels, each made individually by the participants and then assembled into a single piece.

This workshop is for anyone curious to explore the intersection of craftsmanship, design, and culinary creation, and who wishes to explore an original material. Additional learning sessions will also be offered: Studio CoPain will introduce participants to sourdough bread making, using a more traditional approach. These sessions will allow them to understand bread in all its aspects, both as food and as a material for creation.

Schedule

Day 1

Morning

• Introductions
• Presentation of Studio CoPain
• Access to a shared archive on bread and decoration

• Research, sketching
• Presentation of the different results
• Sponsorship
• Introduction to sourdough bread
• Sourdough bread tasting

Day 2

Morning

• • Preparation of decorative pastes
  • Exploration and testing of different decoration and marquetry techniques
  • Creation of a small individual piece

Test

Afternoon

• Sharing of acquired knowledge and individual discoveries
• Start of creating the final artwork
• Firing

Day 3

Morning

• Sharing progress on the finished artwork
• Continuing the creation of the artwork

Afternoon

• Continuing the creation of the final artwork and firing
• Presentation of assembly and preservation techniques

Day 4

Morning

• Assembly of the collective artwork and finishing touches

Afternoon

• Review of the training and roundtable discussion
• Workshop organization

Studio CoPain

Sidonie Lepetit, Lucile Barbier, Léa Bardin

These three French designers have chosen bread as their testing ground. Together, they form Studio CoPain, a collective that redefines the boundaries of design by blending craftsmanship, food, and storytelling.

Far from the kitchen, these designers explore the symbolic and sensory dimension of bread in their studios, considering it as a material in its own right. Their approach, at the crossroads of culinary design, scenography, and product design, questions the role of gesture, know-how, and tradition in contemporary creation.

With their project Croûte que Croûte, they repurpose bread dough to create chairs, vases, and lamps, all entirely handmade from a type of dough sculpted like clay. Inspired by traditional decorative techniques, their pieces oscillate between artisanal homage and reflection on our relationship with this universal food.

Through their creations, Studio CoPain celebrates bread as a symbol of connection, sharing, and heritage, inviting us to rediscover the poetry of simple gestures. Blending art, design, and collective memory, their approach reinvents a material as humble as it is essential.

• Ceramic workshop
• Small tools, materials, and ceramic equipment (provided)
• Plant and mineral material library provided and expanded on-site
• Specialized documentation, art books, and ceramic pieces (for consultation)
• Individual and group experiments supported by technical and theoretical guidance
• Exchanges and interactions among participants based on sharing and mutual support in production

• Applied Theory: Theoretical input illustrated by a demonstration and individual exercises
• Regular self-assessment through practical application and discussion sessions
• Developing a personal project: Learning arises from experimentation and needs
• A group experience (at 2/3 of the training) allowing for consolidation and enrichment of learning
• Group presentation: Experience report at the end of the training
• Attendance sheet for each half-day
• Certificate of completion issued by Campus MaNa