Ahokpe + Chatelin
Bio
Ahokpe + Chatelin is a Brussels-based textile research and production studio founded by Estelle Chatelin and Georges Ahokpe. The duo, composed of a textile designer and a weaver, opens a dialogue between Benin and Belgium and questions the practices of weaving for domestic use.
Sensitive to the textile, craft and industrial heritage, Ahokpe + Chatelin seeks to enhance it by crossing their respective knowledge, cultures and points of view. They emphasise the links between the producer, the tool and the user. Each of their objects, conceived between the two countries, proposes a story that highlights both territories. At the genesis of their studio, Estelle and Georges set up a design method, couper-décaler-travailler (trad. "cut-shift-work"). Through this leitmotiv, they create production scenarios to combine traditions, materials and techniques. With their experimental method of co-creation, they propose physical and imaginary travel objects that awaken to the concrete and plural realities that surround us.