Wax Box II

Based in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, Maison Intègre is a design studio and bronze workshop fostering West Africa's long lineage of craftsmanship. Founded by Ambre Jarno in 2017, the studio has partnered with a community of art founders and metalsmiths in Ouagadougou. The artisans carry on the local lost wax bronze casting technique, which has largely remained unchanged since its inception millennia ago.

Together, they built a comprehensive workshop to support the artisanship of fifteen artisans. Completed in 2022, the new foundry structure has significantly contributed in protecting the craft traditions, providing a livelihood for the artisans and their families.

Jarno fosters collaborations and an ongoing dailogue between the art founders of Maison Intègre and bronzesmiths of her native France, who have had the opportunity to visit the workshop in Ouagadougou, for all of them to exchange and share their respective knowhow and metalsmithing tradition.

For over five years now, Maison Intègre has invited contemporary designers to spend time at the foundry and develop pieces together with the team. The inaugural collection resulted from the founders collaboration with Noé Duchaufour-Lawrance, and included a series of seven sculptural pieces that embody and draw inspiration from the vernacular architecture and design of Burkina Faso.