design september brussel

08/09 > 01/10

A FURNITURE PROJECT BY

FIEN MULLER AND HANNES VAN SEVEREN

VALERIE TRAAN @ JEROME SOHIER

During Design September, the gallery Valerie Traan will be present by Jérôme Sohier to show an extraordinary project. For the first time, Fien Muller and Hannes Van Severen have designed furniture and lighting and have done so together for the first time as well. The Muller Van Severen project was established as a result.

Valerie Traan commissioned and is exhibiting the pieces for the first time from 6 May 2011 in Antwerp. Fien and Hannes will add a few new pieces to this unique, unseen collection for Design September 2011.

Contradiction and harmony.

The expressive artists Fien Muller and Hannes Van Severen are producing a furniture collection. Simple storage containers, tables, shelves and lights that call the work of Donald Judd and Bauhaus to mind with their pure form but which embrace opulent ornament in their finish and combination. 

Where art is created for both from the tension between the familiar and the unfamiliar, their furniture are also created from need and function. 

Marbles and brass but also every day cutting board material, that replaces the wooden board in every professional kitchen, are used as the basic material for shelves and tables and for cutting board installations. 

Simple tubes become light sculptures. Shelves become tables. Colour and material play an important role. 

The gallery Valerie Traan will also display pieces of Bram Boo, Jan De Cock, Henri Wilson, Wieki Somers, Jij’s…

Valerie Traan @ Jérôme Sohier, Rue de la Régence 55, 1000 Bruessels. Infos : 0475 75 94 59 - www.valerietraan.be. Open from Wednesday to Sunday from 11AM to 7PM

08/09 > 30/09

DAY SIGN (STUDIO SIMPLE)

HALELUJA

Fashion and design: creative kindred spirits for a better environment at Design September 2011

Studio Simple and the Valerie Traan gallery are presenting a new version of the DAY SIGN project at Hallelujah during Design September.

About Studio Simple and day sign

From 1 January to 27 January 2011 Studio Simple made a “product” every day, each day was dedicated to something that touched them on that day and what was “needed” on that day. The project was presented for the first time in the spring by Valerie Traan but is naturally a continuously evolving event. Studio Simple will create new utilitarian objects for Design September within this daily story and exhibit them in a setting at Hallelujah in Brussels. Day sign is concerned with simplicity and with “time” with what surrounds us, a combination of the found and the new. The ecological “footprint” is only a few steps removed from where the object is used. Everything that was and is made is produced locally. Design with your own direct environment as the source of inspiration. Creating a moment in the day in which the ordinary becomes unique, searching for simplicity results in meaningful objects. These objects arise from the need of the moment (in the day) rather than from randomness, greed or aesthetics.

The utilitarian objects are thereby given clarity, which is immediately also the (symbolic) language, a language that is recognisable and comprehensible. The time of day plays an important role in this, the now! The signs (signing, the sign) of a conscious environment, in which whatever works is also beautiful.

About Haleluja

A new green wave is rolling towards us. What used to be an eco-trend has become a way of life. In recent years, a growing number of young fashion designers have set ecological awareness as high as quality and design in their work. A luxurious, provocative boutique has recently opened in the centre of Brussels based on these principals of sustainable fashion. This new boutique marries the once opposing fields of ecology and fashion. The selected collections must be environmentally sustainable, but they approach this in a variety of ways: Some focus on using pure materials like organic cotton, wild silk, wool, soya, and milk, and no chemical treatments. Others focus on recycling garments, fabrics and other materials. All use environment-friendly production techniques. All collections though are firstly selected for their beauty and style. They prove that ecological and socially correct apparel can be cool, modern, and free of the typical eco cliché.

Haleluja (Sonja Noël), Nieuwe Graanmarkt 6, 1000 Brussels. Info : www.valerietraan.be - www.haleluja.be. Open from Monday to Saturday from 11.00 to 18.30.