XPO, the Federation of Exhibition Designers

XPO, the French federation for exhibition designers, has put together a conference on the issues around exhibition in all its forms : permanent, temporary, phygital, virtual, performance, etc.

 

Three issues will be tackled in roundtable discussions bringing together stakeholders from the political, cultural, non-profit, research, and scientific and artistic education spheres. XPO’s creators and producers work with these stakeholders every day to serve over 100 million visitors per year:

• What is the purpose of an exhibition today ? It’s a way of communicating with the visitor as a citizen of the future, as it enables new value systems and behaviours to emerge and provides dynamic exchanges on these subjects via shared experiences.
• How can we stretch conceptual and geographical limits ? New forms of exhibition are emerging, both in response to new challenges and also in terms of how they are designed and produced: collaborative, phygital, co-produced by public/private entities.
• Exhibition as a work of art ? Curators and designers entered the realm of authors and artists at the end of 2020. Should we think about the consequences of this new reality in relation to other players in the exhibition world, as a work of collaboration ?

 

The central debate : Should the exhibition ecosystem join the realm of the creative industries, with a central body to coordinate, inform and train professionals throughout the country and support international efforts ?