YokYok is a creative studio founded and run by Samson Lacoste and Luc Pinsard, architects since 2015. Today it is made up of four parteners, with Laure Qarémy a teacher and Pauline Lazareff an architect-engineer. The team's work lies somewhere between art and architecture. Through immersive installations, they explore the relationship between the body, matter, sensory experience, geometry and landscape. Sometimes in situ, sometimes nomadic, these installations play with architecture and question their environment by shifting its fundamentals.
YokYok's installations have been exhibited at the Festival de Jardins de Chaumont-sur-Loire (France), the Musée Frac Occitanie Toulouse Les Abattoirs (France), the National Museum of Singapore (Singapore), the Jardins de Sanayeh in Beirut (Lebanon), the Jardins de Marqueyssac (France), the Musée Montmartre in Paris (France), the Festival International des Jardins de Métis (Canada) and the Sziget Festival in Budapest (Hungary).
YokYok won the Europe40under40 awards in 2022, the SDAwards (Surface Design) in 2023 and 2022, the French Design100 du VIA in 2021 and 2019, ADC awards 2017 and Archilovers Best Project 2017. The team has been invited by Voyage à Nantes in 2020 and 2021.
Standing tall in the middle of the forest, these totemic-like figures catch the eye. ON approach, a large and substantial artwork is revealed. Three thatched silhouettes seem to await exploration. We climb into them, stick our heads out. We become giants, wear the sculpture like a garment. Visitors are invited to participate in the art and experience it from the inside. Curious, we step into the body to gain height and stick our head out at its peak. We experience its protective envelope. We transform. We camouflage ourselves, rediscovering our child-like spirit in a monumental garment.
This work will attempt to address several environmental, educational, and artistic issues:
- Questioning our footprint and our actions
- Immersing ourselves in the natural environment
- Creating with a low impact on the environment but a strong impact on minds
- Practising reuse
- Helping to raise awareness about the value of the forest
- Questioning the relationship between humans and nature
- Offering an experience, a break from the norm
- Showcasing art in the forest and establishing an intimate dialogue with the area
- Participating in an ambitious artistic project.