Studiolow, guest designer 2024
Héloïse Charital and Ismaël Rifaï, are respectively born in 1994 and 1993. They both graduated from the Design Academy Eindhoven, after studying at Ecole Supérieure d’Art et de Design de Marseille Méditérranée for Héloïse and Ecole Supérieure d’Art et de Design de Saint-Etienne for Ismaël. In 2019, they co-founded Studiolow, a research studio based in Marseille. Their work is part of the collections of the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe, Hamburg, and has been exhibited at the Émergences Biennial at the Centre national de la danse, Pantin, (2020) at the Design Museum London (2021), at the Friedman Benda Gallery New York (2021), at the Carlota Oyarzun Gallery (Copenhagen, 2022). They were residents of Artagon Marseille from 2021 to 2022 and winners of the Prix Région Sud Design in 2023 at Art-o-rama. They are currently developing a residency project as part of Ateliers Médicis’ Création en cours program.
Designer-researchers, Ismaël and Héloïse defend an anthropological approach to design, which they apply to a variety of subjects, often addressing issues of informality, the vernacular, migration and adaptation. Residents of Artagon Marseille from 2020 to 2022 and winners of the Prix Région Sud Design at Art-o-rama in 2023, they took part in the Création en Cours program at Ateliers Médicis in 2024 and are currently developing a project around the figure of the rempailleur, supported by Fraeme – Art-o-rama, the Centre Wallonie Bruxelles and DRAC PACA.
Région Sud Prize 2023
Through a partnership with Fræme, resident association at Marseille’s Friche la Belle de Mai and producer of Art-o-rama international contemporary art fair, and the Design Museum Brussels, the Centre has awarded a joint prize with the Design Museum Brussels to the Studiolow design duo in 2023, as part of the Prix Région Sud Design, organized by Art-o-rama to support and accompany the professionalization of young designers based in the Sud – Provence region.
This joint prize will enable the presentation of new pieces by the winners for the 2024 edition of Art-o-rama, with production support from Fræme and the Centre. These new productions will be exhibited at the 2024 edition of Art-o-rama, as well as at the Design Museum Brussels, from September 12 to October 6, during Design September 2024.
Rafistolages
Production supported by FRAEME / Art-o-rama and Centre Wallonie Bruxelles.
Rafistolages is a material and historical investigation into the question of care and its economic, social and anthropological implications. Through the figure of the rempailleur and rempailleuse, the project questions the political aspect of maintenance and repair, in order to rethink these practices, which come under the heading of “care”. In 1990, political philosophers Joan Tronto and Berenice Fischer defined care in the following terms: “We suggest that care be considered as a generic activity that includes everything we do to maintain, perpetuate and repair our ‘world’. The project takes Fischer and Tronto’s definition as the starting point for an analysis of the aesthetic, functional and emotional values associated with the work of potting. Through the prism of an exploration of know-how, Studiolow proposes a series of sculpture-objects highlighting the socio-economic aspects of materials and techniques.
CENTRE WALLONIE-BRUXELLES|PARIS
Far from constituting a mausoleum that would contribute to the canonization of the pa-ma-trimonial heritage of French-speaking Belgian culture, the Centre, aka le Vaisseau, is a referenced situated catalyser, a non-prescriptive place with an experiential vocation for so-called Belgian contemporary creation and the artistic ecosystem in its transversality.
Through its resolutely de-anctuarizing and a-trans-disciplinary programming, the Center is mandated to disseminate and promote the work of artists based in the Wallonia-Brussels Federation. It thus promotes emerging and established talent, from the peripheral to the established. It helps to stimulate international co-productions and partnerships, and to crystallize attention in favor of the so-called Belgian scene.
Each season, the Centre unveils artistic approaches that attest to the irreducibility of a common denominator in the porous territories of contemporary creation. Located in the 4th arrondissement of Paris, its programming is spread over more than 1,000 m2. A decentralized Belgian vessel, in addition to its In-Situ programming, it also implements Hors-les-Murs programming and invests Cyberspace as a territory for creation and propagation with dedicated content.
The Center is a decentralized service of Wallonie- Bruxelles International (WBI): an instrument of the international policy pursued by Wallonia, the Wallonia-Brussels Federation and the French Community Commission of the Brussels-Capital Region.
Design Museum Brussels
The Design Museum Brussels, established after the acquisition of a private collection by the Atomium, is a place dedicated to design and its history. Since 2015, the museum’s collection, The Plastic Design Collection, circumscribes the landscape of plastics in design from the 1950s to the present day. Alongside this collection, in September 2020 the museum opened Belgisch Design Belge, a new permanent exhibition space dedicated to Belgian design and its history.
Enriched by a programme of temporary exhibitions, the Design Museum Brussels also explores other fields of design creation and its impact on society and our daily lives.
Through exhibitions, guided tours, workshops, conferences and events, the museum aims to ensure that design is intelligible to one and all.
Previous guest designer
2023 – Maxime Douillet
