Time really is money in Diego Faivres multicoloured objects

Interview with Diego Faivre’s, creator of the Minute Manufacturing project

Minute Manufacturing is a project by Diego Faivre that challenges the traditional way we fabricate and value an object. It is a response to the mass production obsession with money and time and the lack of self-expression.

Minute Manufacturing is in fact a new production system that makes objects by the minute. The cost is measured in ‘Diego Coins’: every Diego Coin is the equivalent of one euro and is worth one minute of production time.

Diego Faivre makes his products using industrial waste materials such as cardboard tubes, plastic boxes and leather strips. To add appeal, he covers each objet with colorful ‘Diego Dough’ an air-drying clay.

In the Minute Manufacturing production system time really is money and the amount of minutes spent affect the quality and design of every object.

Time really is money in Diego Faivres multicoloured objects

How did you come up with the Minute Manufacturing project?

I’ve constantly been surrounded by the obsession of time. For instance, when my mum cooks a pie and she makes a new recipe, my father will reproduce the exact same recipe by trying to do it faster, to finally become a 25 minutes pie. I grew up in an environment where efficiency ruled, but I didn’t really paid attention to this until someone made the relation between my childhood and the minute manufacture!

Later on, I started to work in a factory as a blue collar for nine month, and I immediately was confronted to the time and money intrinsic relation. Where every action was meticulously calculated, recorded and assessed.

During my study I challenged myself to use the break between the classes to make furniture that I worked on almost every day for a few month as a side project. I was making chairs in 15 minutes, tables in 14 minutes, stools in 13 minutes, with the trash that I could find in the academy’s workshops. It was interesting to work with the time pressure, but I was very restricted with my environment, the machines and the materials. It looked really bad, completely unfunctional and unable to stand on its own. But the experience of the making, the very quick step I went through overcame the « final product » and I could talk about most of the object I made due to the unique moments I had during the production. I found this way of working the most inspiring for me.

A few month after the beginning of the project, during a residency in China, I encountered the clay in an art shop. Later on, by accidentally using the clay on a chair I created a series of covered furniture that I would pimp as fast as I could.

Time really is money in Diego Faivres multicoloured objects

What’s the idea behind the project and what do you want to communicate with it?

The manufacture is a physical reaction to the rise of mass production and strives to combat the collective identity that does not allow expression and a cultivation of personal identity. This challenges the traditional means by which we value an object. The designs themselves will be unique in this regard, as the quality of the outcome is correlated with production time and its cost and not the resource it is comprised from.

The Minute Manufacture proposes a design that orients itself around this concept; a design that serves as a symbol to emphasize our obsession with time and money.

How do people react to your objects and your work?

It makes people happy,

The first reaction was that it made people happy and it was something that I never suspected but my work really translated the way I create and people can feel it. And then it also makes them curious about the material and the process of the making.

Time really is money in Diego Faivres multicoloured objects

The Minute Manufacture proposes a design that serves as a symbol to emphasize our obsession with time and money.

Time really is money in Diego Faivres multicoloured objects

How do you choose the objects and furnishing you want to cover? What about the colors?

First of all, it starts with the clay on itself, it is very colorful and has profound color shades. The whole Minute Manufacture project revolves around colors and patterns but most importantly bringing fun into daily (boring and forgotten) objects.

Which object you haven’t covered yet with your dough and would like to work on?

For the past years, I covered a lot of objects from chairs, to doorstop, to even a fire escape staircase in Vienna! I have a bucket list of objects to « upgrade », I recently made an armchair but I would love to cover an entire space: from the walls to every single objects inside!

Time really is money in Diego Faivres multicoloured objects

Time really is money in Diego Faivres multicoloured objects

Do you consider yourself more of a designer or craftsman?

I rely mostly on my instinct, and the flow. I like to consider it as an interaction with my surrounding (what kind of materials are around me, the tools that I can access). In a way I am a little bit of both, because it requires a lot of technique but the way I come up with the objects and create is definitely more as a designer.

Are you working on new projects?

Unfortunately I can’t really talk about for now, but I’ll keep you updated 🙂

Time really is money in Diego Faivres multicoloured objects

Time really is money in Diego Faivres multicoloured objects

The Minute Manufacture project revolves around colors and patterns but most importantly into bringing fun into daily objects.

Time really is money in Diego Faivres multicoloured objects

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