Fadets

Since 2010, as part of the annual programme of Artists’ Residencies, the Fondation d’entreprise Hermès has invited visual artists to explore the artisanal skills and know-how that form the foundation of the house of Hermès production workshops across France. Artists have creative carte blanche to make new works in collaboration with exceptional artisans at the house’s silk, leather, crystal and silver workshops. The Residencies are an opportunity for creative artists to discover new materials and experiment with unprecedented ways of working and making. As they produce two versions of a single work of art, one remains with the artist, while the other is kept in the Foundation’s collection for public exhibition. Artists selected for the programme are mentored by prominent figures in the art world. For 2024-25, independent exhibition curator Emmanuelle Luciani identified and mentored several visual artists, including Jenna Kaës.

Designer Jenna Kaës (b. 1987 in Saverne, in the French department of Bas-Rhin) lives and works in Paris, where she explores mystical experience and the possibility of giving form to the spiritual in contemporary art. Her objects are inspired by our subconscious, our loves and fears, and perceptions of death in contemporary society. Her work includes collaborations with artisan houses as custodians of ancient, precious skills and techniques, always with the aim of shining a light on the heritage and values that form the foundation of their work. In this context, her projects have led her to work with bronze, glass and wood, as well as precious stones and textiles.

During her residency, Jenna Kaës discovered the various trades practiced at the Maroquinerie de la Tardoire, in Montbron (in the central western French department of Charente). Immersing herself in local traditions, folklore and myth, she was drawn in particular to the fadet, a legendary, often mischievous creature associated with the world of fairies or pixies.  This research resonated with her fascination for bats – nocturnal animals often attributed with evil powers, in the Western tradition. At the outset of her residency, Jenna Kaës visited the Château de Rochechouart, which immediately became integral to the mindscape of her project. Accompanied by artisans at the leather workshop – notably Cécile Coiteux and Emmanuel Villette – Jenna Kaës worked with off-cuts of black tanned leather, highlighting their mottled texture, and mounting them on brass frames to form majestic wings around a body in hand-blown glass. The resulting four pieces, in two different sizes, compose a family of hybrid creatures, alluring and troubling in equal measure.

The glass elements were made in collaboration with master glassmaker Simon Muller at the Arcam workshop near Nantes.

The Fondation d’entreprise Hermès is delighted to partner with the Musée d’Art Contemporain de la Haute-Vienne – Château de Rochechouart, 40 km from the leather workshops where the pieces were made, to present ‘Fadets’ by Jenna Kaës, a series of four unique sculptures produced at the Maroquinerie de la Tardoire, in Montbron.

The residency is documented in a film that retraces the stages of this exciting artistic and personal journey.