In the beginning, there was her desire to work with a natural, living material. Violaine Buet’s choice intuitively fell on seaweed, the ancient marine plant that formed part of the landscape of her childhood in Brittany. The overarching goal of her efforts: To develop an innovative expertise on seaweed to use it in art, haute couture, scenography and decoration as well as visual merchandising and industrial manufacturing. Because: seaweed can be used in many ways. Whether weaving, dyeing, sewing, printing, embossing, tufting, engraving, braiding or pressing – the possibilities seem almost unlimited.

With her craftsmanship as a designer, Violaine Buet explores the aesthetic and technical properties of the material, develops natural dyeing methods with the support of experts in vegetable dyeing and biopolymer researchers. Using interdisciplinary methods, she combines expertise with craftsmanship, inspired by weavers, leather workers, jewelers, tailors, screen printers, gilders and master glaziers. In this way, she not only creates customised textiles from the biodegradable algae, but also walls, landscapes and installations.

“It’s like writing a story with an inevitable factor of time. With seaweed I have to take into account seasons, species, tides, weight, smell, particularities, colour-fade, hydrophilicity and decomposition, all of which change with time. It’s about everything coming together in a kind of balance.”

Violaine Buet