Maison Perrier-Jouët partners with Marcin Rusak for Plant Pulses installation at Miami Art Week 2025, plus the inaugural Design for Nature Award launch.
Maison Perrier-Jouët returns to Miami Art Week this December with Polish artist and designer Marcin Rusak. The partnership delivers three things: an installation called ‘Plant Pulses’ at the Faena, a limited edition gift pack featuring Rusak’s glassware designs, and the first winner of the Design for Nature Award. It’s the champagne house’s most substantial artistic programme to date.
What ‘Plant Pulses’ Actually Does
The installation runs from 1st to 7th December 2025. Rusak has created something genuinely unusual. He’s made it possible for humans to perceive the signals plants emit, both visually and audibly. You can see it and hear it.
This isn’t artistic licence. The work draws on laboratory research from scientists at the University of Kraków, whom Rusak met during his creative process. Plant communication exists. Scientists measure it. Rusak has translated those measurements into something human senses can understand.
The installation sits within Rusak’s broader practice, but it pushes further than his previous work. He’s known for preserving flowers in resin, creating furniture and sculptural pieces that capture natural transformation. Those works ask questions about decay, beauty, and what we choose to keep. ‘Plant Pulses’ takes a different approach. It’s about perception itself, about making visible what’s always been there.
Rusak’s Practice and Why This Partnership Works
Marcin Rusak has spent years challenging how we think about natural materials in contemporary design. His work appears in major galleries and private collections internationally. He takes flowers that would otherwise be discarded and gives them permanence, but he doesn’t prettify them. The work acknowledges decay as part of beauty.
Perrier-Jouët chose well. The house has commissioned artists since 1902, when Émile Gallé created the anemone design for Belle Époque bottles. That bottle design still defines the brand. But the artistic programme has expanded considerably in recent decades. Previous collaborations have explored perception, materiality, and how humans relate to nature.
Rusak’s approach fits. He works with organic matter. Perrier-Jouët grows Chardonnay grapes in Épernay’s chalky soils. Both understand that quality comes from specific places with specific conditions. The connection to terroir runs through everything the house does.
Axelle de Buffévent, Perrier-Jouët’s creative director, has shaped this artistic direction. She’ll appear in conversation with Rusak at Design Miami on 3rd December at noon. The panel will likely dig into the creative process behind ‘Plant Pulses’, the role of scientific research in artistic practice, and how champagne houses can support contemporary art without simply slapping logos on exhibitions.
These conversations matter. Audiences want more than finished works now. They want to understand the thinking and research underneath. De Buffévent knows this. Her programming consistently delivers substance over spectacle.
The Limited Edition Designs
Available now: gift packs featuring either Perrier-Jouët Blanc de Blancs or Belle Époque 2016, each accompanied by flutes Rusak designed. The glassware features intertwined plant motifs that extend the installation’s themes into functional objects.
The Blanc de Blancs showcases Perrier-Jouët’s work with Chardonnay. It’s a champagne of considerable finesse. Belle Époque 2016 is the house’s flagship vintage cuvée, recognised for both exceptional quality and that iconic bottle with Japanese white anemones. The 2016 vintage has received strong reviews across the trade.
Rusak’s flutes aren’t mere decoration. The intertwined plants echo Art Nouveau’s flowing lines whilst showing his contemporary design sensibility. For collectors who follow both champagne and design, these pieces bridge multiple disciplines. And unlike the installation, which disappears after Art Week, the gift packs are permanent. You can actually own them.
The Design for Nature Award Changes Things
Here’s what matters: Maison Perrier-Jouët and Design Miami have launched an annual award for designers working at the intersection of artistic innovation and environmental responsibility. The Perrier-Jouët Design for Nature Award will select one practitioner each year whose work shows both a responsible approach to sustainability and an affinity with Art Nouveau’s ethos.
The winner creates a unique work presented in Miami the following year. So the 2025 winner, announced on 3rd December, will show new work during Miami Art Week 2026. This structure gives designers real time to develop meaningful projects rather than rushing something out in three months.
The selection panel for this first edition: Axelle de Buffévent and Glenn Adamson. Adamson is writer, historian, and Curatorial Director of Design Miami 2025. He’s written extensively on craft and design history and directed the Museum of Arts and Design in New York. His involvement adds serious cultural weight.
The award specifically asks designers to investigate sustainability through Art Nouveau principles. That framing matters. Art Nouveau celebrated the interconnectedness of nature, culture, and creativity. The movement flourished at the turn of the twentieth century, emphasising organic forms and integrating art into everyday life. Practitioners believed beauty should permeate all aspects of existence.
By anchoring the award in Art Nouveau, Perrier-Jouët positions environmental responsibility as part of a longer artistic tradition, not a recent marketing concern. It’s a smart move. Too many sustainability initiatives in the luxury sector feel like corporate box-ticking. This one has historical grounding and philosophical coherence.
The award description mentions “constructive optimism” for a more sustainable future. That’s refreshing. Environmental discourse often wallows in anxiety and doom. This programme asks designers to propose solutions, to show what’s possible rather than what’s broken.
Why Miami Art Week
The timing is deliberate. Miami Art Week has become one of the most important moments in the international art calendar. Design Miami runs concurrently with Art Basel Miami Beach, attracting collectors, curators, artists, and cultural enthusiasts from across the globe. It’s where collectible design gets serious attention, where boundaries between art, design, and craft become productively unclear.
The Faena hosts Rusak’s installation. Good choice. The venue has become central during Art Week, known for ambitious presentations. And the concentration of cultural programming during these days creates the right context. Visitors arrive expecting to encounter challenging work and unfamiliar perspectives. They’re primed for it.
For luxury brands, Art Week offers rare opportunities. You can engage culturally sophisticated audiences in settings that prioritise creativity over commerce. But you have to deliver substance. The audience knows when they’re being marketed to. Perrier-Jouët’s three-part programme,installation, product, award,shows ambition beyond sponsorship.
What Art Nouveau Actually Means Here
Art Nouveau isn’t just visual style. It’s a philosophy about how humans should relate to nature and how art should function in society. The movement rejected industrialisation’s mechanistic approach, drawing inspiration from natural forms and organic growth patterns. Practitioners studied plants, insects, and natural phenomena, translating what they observed into architecture, furniture, jewellery, and graphic design.
The movement also broke down hierarchies between fine art and applied arts. A well-designed teapot mattered as much as a painting. Beauty should permeate daily life, not hide in galleries visited once a year.
Perrier-Jouët’s commitment to this philosophy goes back generations. When the house commissioned Gallé for the Belle Époque bottle in 1902, Art Nouveau was at its peak. That bottle design,white anemones rendered with botanical accuracy and artistic grace,remains one of the most recognisable images in champagne. It’s on every bottle of Belle Époque produced.
The Design for Nature Award extends this thinking into contemporary practice. What does Art Nouveau’s philosophy look like now? How do designers honour nature’s interconnectedness whilst addressing climate change, resource depletion, and waste? These questions deserve serious attention.
The award will generate ongoing discussion about what environmental responsibility means in design practice. Sustainability has become a buzzword, often deployed without much specificity. By requiring winners to demonstrate both practical responsibility and Art Nouveau affinity, the award pushes designers to think deeply about their materials, processes, and outcomes.
The Commercial Side Isn’t Hidden
Let’s be clear: this is commercial activity. Perrier-Jouët sells champagne. The limited edition gift packs are for sale. The installation happens during a week when wealthy collectors make purchasing decisions. The award raises the brand’s profile in design communities.
But that doesn’t diminish the work’s value. Luxury brands have supported artists for centuries. Patronage built the Renaissance. The question isn’t whether commercial interests exist but whether the resulting work has merit and whether the support is genuine.
Perrier-Jouët’s track record suggests genuine engagement. The house doesn’t slap its name on random exhibitions. The artistic programme has coherence. Each collaboration connects to Art Nouveau principles and explores how humans perceive and relate to nature. That consistency matters.
The limited edition gift packs demonstrate this. Rusak didn’t just design pretty glassware. The flutes extend ‘Plant Pulses’ conceptually, translating the installation’s themes into objects people can use. Drinking champagne from those flutes becomes an experience shaped by the same ideas about nature and perception that inform the larger work.
And the Design for Nature Award commits resources over years, not just one event. Annual awards require ongoing investment. Creating a platform for designers working on sustainability issues, selecting winners thoughtfully, and supporting the creation of new work,this takes effort and money.
What Happens on 3rd December
The Design Miami panel at noon brings Rusak and de Buffévent together for public conversation. The discussion will explore the creative process behind ‘Plant Pulses’, the role of scientific research in art, and how champagne houses can support contemporary practice meaningfully.
Later that day, the Design for Nature Award winner is announced. The design community will be watching. The first winner establishes what the award values, what kind of practice it rewards. That decision shapes subsequent editions.
Whoever wins inherits both opportunity and pressure. They’ll create new work for presentation at Miami Art Week 2026.
That work will be scrutinised. Critics and peers will ask whether it lives up to the award’s stated principles, whether it shows genuine innovation, whether it honours Art Nouveau philosophy whilst addressing contemporary concerns.
The announcement will likely spark discussion about sustainable design practices more broadly. What does environmental responsibility look like in luxury contexts? Can designers create beautiful, desirable objects whilst minimising harm? How do you balance craftsmanship,which often requires resource-intensive processes,with sustainability goals?
These aren’t simple questions. The Design for Nature Award won’t solve them. But it creates a platform for exploring them seriously.
Perrier-Jouët’s Vineyards and Terroir
The house’s connection to specific place and natural conditions runs deep. Perrier-Jouët maintains vineyards in Épernay where Chardonnay flourishes in chalky soils. Those soils matter. They drain well, store heat, and impart mineral qualities to the grapes. You can taste the terroir in the finished champagne.
Understanding terroir means understanding that quality comes from specific natural conditions that can’t be replicated elsewhere. It’s why champagne can only come from Champagne, why Burgundy Pinot Noir tastes different from Oregon Pinot Noir. Place matters.
This understanding informs the house’s broader philosophy about nature. You can’t shortcut quality. You can’t manufacture it through clever marketing. It comes from patient work with specific natural materials in specific conditions. That’s true for viticulture and it’s true for art and design.
The Blanc de Blancs in the limited edition gift packs expresses this. Made entirely from Chardonnay, it shows the grape’s potential when grown in ideal conditions and handled with expertise. It’s a champagne of restraint and precision, qualities that come from deep understanding of the source material.
Belle Époque 2016 takes this further. As a vintage cuvée, it expresses a single year’s growing conditions. 2016 delivered excellent weather in Champagne. The resulting wines show both power and finesse. Collectors will cellar Belle Époque 2016 for years, watching how it develops.
Looking at What Comes Next
Miami Art Week 2025 will determine how this programme is received. If ‘Plant Pulses’ succeeds, if the Design for Nature Award winner is compelling, if the limited edition gift packs sell well, then Perrier-Jouët has established a model for ongoing cultural engagement.
The annual rhythm matters. Each year brings a new Design for Nature Award winner. Each winner creates work for the following year’s Art Week. The programme builds momentum and continuity. It becomes something people anticipate rather than a one-off event.
For designers, the award represents a significant opportunity. Winning brings international attention, resources to create new work, and association with a prestigious luxury brand. It could launch careers or elevate already-established practices.
For Perrier-Jouët, the programme reinforces the house’s positioning at the intersection of luxury, art, and environmental consciousness. In a market where every champagne house claims heritage and quality, differentiation matters. Artistic programmes that deliver substance rather than spectacle create lasting associations.
The success will be measured not just in immediate reception but in longer-term impact.
Does the programme generate meaningful conversation about design and sustainability? Do subsequent award winners produce compelling work? Does the initiative inspire other luxury brands to develop similarly substantial cultural programmes?
The Broader Context
Luxury brands increasingly recognise that cultural engagement requires more than sponsorship plaques at galas. Audiences, particularly younger collectors, expect brands to demonstrate values and support causes meaningfully. Environmental sustainability ranks high among those concerns.
But greenwashing is rampant. Brands make vague commitments, publish sustainability reports filled with corporate jargon, and hope nobody looks too closely at actual practices. Cynicism is justified.
Perrier-Jouët’s approach offers something more substantive. By launching an annual award with clear criteria, serious jurors, and real resources for creating new work, the house makes a tangible commitment. The award can be judged on outcomes. Did winners produce good work? Did the programme advance conversations about sustainable design? These are answerable questions.
The connection to Art Nouveau provides intellectual coherence often missing from sustainability initiatives. It’s not just “we care about the environment” but “here’s a historical artistic movement that explored how humans relate to nature, and here’s how contemporary designers can extend that thinking whilst addressing current challenges.”
That framing elevates the discussion. It treats sustainability as a creative and philosophical challenge, not just a technical problem to be solved through better materials or processes.
Final Thoughts
‘Plant Pulses’, the limited edition designs, and the Design for Nature Award represent a considerable commitment from Maison Perrier-Jouët. The programme has ambition and coherence. It honours the house’s Art Nouveau heritage whilst engaging contemporary concerns about environmental sustainability.
Whether it succeeds depends on execution. Rusak’s installation must deliver on its premise. The Design for Nature Award winner must be worthy. The limited edition gift packs must show genuine design thinking, not just superficial decoration.
But the foundation is strong. Rusak’s previous work suggests he can create something genuinely interesting. The selection jury has credibility. And Perrier-Jouët’s track record with artistic collaborations provides confidence that this won’t be mere window dressing.
Miami Art Week 2025 will tell. The installation opens 1st December. By the time the week concludes on 7th December, we’ll know whether this programme delivers substance or just adds more noise to an already crowded cultural calendar.
For now, the proposition is clear: come see how plants communicate, drink champagne from beautifully designed glassware, and witness the announcement of an award that asks designers to imagine more sustainable futures through the lens of Art Nouveau philosophy. Whether that proposition succeeds is another question entirely. But it deserves attention.
