Private Project

SEED

A documentary series exploring artists from multiple disciplines, and how their unique way of thinking informs their voice and their work.

Episode 01 - Matt Gagnon

Matt Gagnon identifies as an architect, but his work blurs the lines between architecture, sculpture, furniture design, and installation art. Gagnon began his studies at Cornell, before cutting his teeth working for both Gaetano Pesce and Frank Gehry. Venturing out with his own studio, Gagnon has designed everything from buildings, to the furniture and lights that inhabit them. Gagnon is the rare artist that designs, but also fabricates all of his creations often by hand. Whether it’s large-scale public art installations or sculptural lights, it’s this special proximity to his work, that fuses an old world artisan with a designer’s eye for the functional and experimental.

  • Destro
    Director
  • Project Type:
    Documentary, Experimental, Short
  • Runtime:
    5 minutes 10 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    October 31, 2019
  • Country of Origin:
    United States
  • Country of Filming:
    United States
  • Shooting Format:
    Digital / 4k
  • Aspect Ratio:
    16:9
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
Director Biography - Destro

Destro is a trio of directors comprised of brothers Sean & Shane McAllen and Drew Neujahr.

Add Director Biography
Director Statement

It can feel like a really dark time; everyday’s a scene from the Manchurian Candidate or a Roland Emmerich disaster. But in the midst of the world burning, we probably all walk by something just astonishingly thoughtful and well made. These ‘Seeds’ show what we can do as a human beings, even on a small scale. These small moments are planted in the world everywhere; how they grow, what they become, and what changes they may inspire in the world are unknown.

The initial idea behind SEED was to experience the work of a different creative individual, what inspires them, their history and process; a way to let us experience an artist’s work through their own words. It’s a way of looking and feeling that can deepen the experience of an artist’s work.

Los Angeles is definitely a character in the film, as it's this incredible melting pot where art and industry collide. The conditions are just right for a special kind of work that maybe isn’t possible anywhere else in the same way. It’s like the Galapagos Islands for creatives.

In developing the visual look, we screened at a lot of work from the 60’s and 70’s for inspiration, Clouzot’s The Mystery of Picasso, and Teshigahara’s Antonio Gaudí, as well as the documentary work of Charles and Ray Eames and Saul Bass. It’s hard to tell exactly what mark these have on the final film, but this was both our ‘reading list’ and creative lodestone.

In our subjects, we weren’t looking for people who had ‘made it’, rather people that were making something new, and doing it different.