Felix Ward and Pierre Dagba

Pierre Dagba and Felix Ward are co‑founders of Matière Noire, a Paris‑based spatial design and scenography studio founded in 2019. As creative directors, they unite architecture, light, and technology to forge immersive environments that blur the lines between art, fashion, music and performance, pioneering what they call an “appetite for the undefined”.

Dagba and Ward pair observational, experimental processes with high‑production discipline. In early 2025, their studio was selected as L’Incubateur’s first beneficiary by Alexandre de Betak and The Independents. They’ve crafted installations for institutions and brands including Hermès, Courrèges, Fondation Cartier, the Gagosian Gallery, MM6, Jean Paul Gaultier by Ludovic, Rains and Y‑3. Notably, they designed the sculptural, curved‑panel SS24 TIME runway at Palais de Tokyo and conceptual scenography for Fondation Cartier’s 40th anniversary, in collaboration with Atelier LUM.

Dagba, with a background in merchandising and light engineering, works seamlessly with Ward’s scenographic and artistic instincts, together coining the term “atmosphere design” to describe their practice of uniting micro‑level technical components (lighting, materials, kinetics) with macro‑scale spatial narratives.