Marion Verboom in collaboration with Manifattura Thélios

During her artistic residency in 2018 at Manifattura Thélios, an Italian producer of high-quality eyewear, French sculptor Marion Verboom was given carte blanche to experiment with acetate and metal, drawing on the expertise of the site's skilled artisans.

Marion Verboom's work plays with combinations of shapes, stratifications of materials and assemblies of original colours. Produced in partnership with the craftsmen of Thélios in Longarone, Italy, the sculptures that emerged from her six-month artistic residency involve the raw materials of eyewear production: acetate and metal. It was the unexplored plastic and artistic potential of these materials that inspired the sculptor to experiment with original shapes, colours and configurations. "Acetate has always seemed mysterious to me," says Verboom. "Through my research, I learned how to model it and inject various external materials into it. A way of structuring it and giving it a soul: making it 'animato', as the Italian craftsmen with whom I had the great fortune of working would say."