Spring - Summer 2018
Michèle Champagne’s residency follows the contours of happiness, its industry, vocabulary and legibility. Happiness. An emotion? A feeling? Or an object of measure? Facial recognition. Criticize? Smile! “Let us not be afraid of words”. Psychologists, office managers, and data scientists dominate the nomenclature of happiness. Even economists at the United Nations. Why?
This residency emerges from a larger research project between A-B-Z and Department of Unusual Certainties. The project invites study and dialogue around the question, What happens when happiness and well-being get mixed up in management and digital surveillance infrastructure?
Michèle Champagne is a graphic designer who moves between visual research, creative direction, and publication design. She works with publication as a “two-way” conversation, and she meanders through open source dynamics, collaborative authorship, and reader participation.
After completing a Masters of Design at Sandberg Instituut Amsterdam in 2011, Champagne is recognized for her collaborations with Droog, Mediamatic, Metahaven, Penguin Random House, Strelka Institute, and VPRO. In 2016 she co-founds A-B-Z.co, an international school dedicated to design, art, and computation. She lives in Montréal.