Show-room Région Sud Design Prize 2023
CP RV, Valérie Douangphrachandr, Flora Koel, Matteo Penza and Studiolow
In the continuity of the Région Sud Art Prize Art-o-rama implemented in 2022 the Région Sud Design Prize which highlights young designers of the region and participates in their professionalization. The Région Sud Design Prize is aimed at designers who have graduated within the last 5 years and who have completed part of their studies in the Southern Region, Provence Alpes Côte d’Azur. Designers will be selected by a curator to be shown in a dedicated space during Art-o-rama.
The laureate will be selected by a jury of professionals during Art-o-rama and will benefit from a 2000€ production grant, an exhibition space during the next edition of the fair and a collaboration with the Centre Wallonie Bruxelles.
Nathalie Dewez – 2023 curator
A 2001 graduate of La Cambre Arts Visuels in Brussels, Nathalie’s design reflects a passion for sculptural forms and quality craftsmanship. Sensitive to the material/imaterial duality that characterizes these products, she began by developing numerous lighting fixtures and always remains attentive to the function and quality of light as well as to the plastic presence of the object when it is turned off. Her work, characterized by a rigorous economy of means and a minimum of easily implemented material components, now ranges from small objects to monumental installations, from single pieces to industrial products. She designs lighting fixtures, but also objects, furniture or more sculptural pieces and also acts as a lighting consultant. In 2011 she received the Design Prize of the Pierre Bergé Foundation and the same year was elected Belgian Designer of the Year, some of her iconic pieces will join the best collections (CNAP, …) and will be rewarded. The presence of Nathalie Dewez at numerous fairs and exhibitions has enabled her to establish collaborations with numerous architectural offices and publishers such as Ligne Roset (F), Vervloet (Be), Hermès (F), Habitat (GB), De Castelli (IT),…
Designers & studios selected for Art-o-rama 2023
CP RV
Based in Marseille, CP RV is a design studio co-founded in 2020 by designers Camille Paillard and Romain Voulet. CP RV is a creative studio specialized in industrial design. Trained by designers from different backgrounds, the office designs products, home furniture, interior spaces and everyday objects and is always looking for the balance between materiality, simplicity and use.
Valérie Douangphrachandr
Valérie Douangphrachandr graduated from the Camondo Mediterranean School after 4 years at Camondo Paris. Since the end of July, she started her activity as a freelance and puts the skills acquired throughout her studies at the service of interior design agencies. In parallel, she continues to develop personal projects of furniture and responsible objects. She wishes to become an interior architect and designer committed to a more sustainable world. She therefore focuses her practice on eco-design, proactively taking part in the ecological transition.
Flora Koel
Holder of a DNAT from the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts de Lyon, Flora Koel, who has been living in Paris for the past 4 years, has embarked on a research project on current design and has gone out to meet designers, architects, collectives, freelancers, design professors, consultants, researchers, and scientists, directly in the field, in order to gain a better understanding of the issues surrounding design. This approach gives her a very contemporary and current vision of the discipline, in full mutation and questioning which she uses to feed her practice and go even further in her reflections.
Matteo Penza
Matteo Penza lives in Marseille. He graduated in architecture from the University of Naples and in design from the Beaux-Arts of Marseille. He wonders what it means to be a designer at a time when producing more and more beautiful chairs seems to be the worst thing to do in this world. He wonders what would happen if, instead of drawing objects, he drew postures, relationships, gestures, narratives evoking other worlds and other possibilities, which force us to squint and force us to follow them with a few side steps.
Studiolow
Studiolow is a research and creative studio based in Marseille, co-founded by artists Héloïse Charital and Ismaël Rifaï in 2018 following their studies at the Design Academy Eindhoven. Their approach lies on the border between contemporary design art and documentary research. This work mainly takes the form of installations in which experimental videos close to amateur documentary, mapping forms and sculptures are mixed. They seek to understand and critically analyze forms of vernacular design. The analysis of these situations by their artists’ eyes and their designers’ tools materializes in installations composed of narrative objects. This methodology works to consider informal techniques or situations as potential models.
