Algae Paper is an ongoing project which uses the green lettuce, an algae species from the north Bretagne shore as an esthaetic ressource to develop some experimental paper sheets, printed materials and sculptures in an immersive discourse around art and ecology.

First experimentations with the algae started in 2014. Since then, more projects have occured like the edition of the Algae Paper Booklet in December 2015, La Passe exhibition in November 2016 and the presentation of Topologies, a micro-installation at Missread Art Book Fair 2017 in Berlin.


Algae Paper

Algae Lamps are light objects who use green Algae Paper sheets as lampshades to diffuse a surrounding green light.

An original LED lamp mounted on a metal structure produce the light who is then filtered by the Algae Paper. It spreads a green light which slowly tends to get whiter after several weeks of using, because the algae looses its chlorophyll pigment when longer exposed to the light. 


The Lampshade made of Algae Paper can easily be replaced by removing some little magnets pinned on the lamp structure. The light intensity is then evolutive and makes this object change in the time like a living organism. 

Two models of these lamps have been produced in micro edition of 6 and 3.


Algae Paper Lamp (Pendant version), 6 ex. : 
Metal, aluminium, wood, paper & algaepaper + LED light.
white, dark-green or emerald, 62(L) x 18(w) x 18(h) cm

Algae Paper Lamp (Table lamp version), 3 ex. :
Metal, aluminium, wood, paper & algaepaper + LED light.
white, dark-green or emerald, 70 (h) x 62 (L) x 30 (w) cm

Algae Lamps

Algae Masks are modern artifacts made from seaweeds that have been collected in the region of North Brittany, in France. Seaweeds and algaes are very diverse there. More than 400 species have been listed since the 19th century on its shore.

Algae Masks are a part of the project Algae Paper that has been initiated in 2014 with the transformation of a green algae (the sea lettuce) into recycled sheets of paper. They are part of a fictive narration inspired by different primitive culture through the world (from Europe to Asia, Africa and the South Pacific), traditional celtic tales and ecoligical matters.

Algae Masks, all about 30 x 20 cm, from different types of green and red algae.

Algae Mask

Color of the deep makes the portrait of several seaweed species of the Brittany north shore in France: Dulse, Ulva, Kombu, Fucus, Bifurcata, Goémon, Kelp etc… They all grow in the region around Locquirec, where the warm waters of the atlantic ocean meet the cold waters of the Channel sea. That creates the optimal conditions for the algae to grow and makes this place one of the most adapted in Europe for their development. 

Every algae sample is photographed above a color background, that is placed in a shooting tank full of water, and built specially for the occasion. The impression is then that the algae floats in the deep, whose color changes constantly in a chromatic game with the color of the frame.

Color of the deep, 2020.
Several Inkjet printed photographies on Hanemühle paper, each presented in a 40 x 40 cm painted frame. Edition of 3 + 1 A.P. 

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Julien Villaret