The vervain song

Every year, la Villa Noailles organizes the Design Parade, a festival of interior architecture. This event brings together the work of 10 young designers in the heart of Toulon, around the theme of “a room to live in by the Mediterranean”. Mélissa Baranger - alias Bam Studio imagined this patio where verbena, a medicinal plant with multiple virtues, also known as “l'herbe aux sorcières”, is sown, cared for and consumed. This patio is a timeless space, where the wind has rushed in and left celestial incantations on undulating volumes of clay. “Le bruit de la verveine” (The vervain song) is a tribute to the invaluable empirical knowledge of herbalism, and an ode to long time, the time of rest and creation.

The starting point for this project was a book, “Plaidoyer pour l'herboristerie: comprendre et défendre les plantes médicinales”, written by Thierry Thévenin. It was through this book that Mélissa was introduced to the vast and fascinating subject of herbalism. A highly political, feminist, ecological and social theme.

“I chose this plant for several reasons, the first being personal. My mother is of Moroccan origin, and we've always eaten the verbena she brings back from her trips to Morocco. For me, this plant is like the Mediterranean: a link between my mother’s land and the blue coast where I grew up.”

The species in question here is lemon verbena (aloysia citrodora). It has febrifuge, antispasmodic, antifungal, sedative and eupeptic properties (source National Library of Medicine).

Laura, founder of Komans based in Marseille, makes lighting fixtures from parts she hunts down and assembles. For the Design Parade occasion, she imagined this transparent suspension, whose different glass patterns play with the light.

This project has been designed to have the lowest possible environmental impact. All the objects are derived from the recycling of existing materials.
The material used for the undulating pink volume in the room is raw earth.

“The use of raw earth is another nod to my Moroccan heritage, my grandfather’s village in the Marrakech countryside is built this way.”

It’s a material that requires no transformation (unlike plaster and lime, for example, which are made from limestone mounted at very high temperatures). There are many different raw clay compositions, but this is clay, sand and pigment.

Art installation - Mélissa Baranger / Bam Studio @bam.studio
Pictures - Julie Vandal @sunwhere_fr