The Belgian design scene is vast and diverse. Belgian institutions are always at the forefront of supporting the people, new projects and products that make our country dynamic and unique.
Lookback on Maison&Objet
Lookback on the Maison&Objet 2024 which celebrated the 30th anniversary of the Parisian fair. The season’s theme, TECH EDEN, has enliven the January edition with reinvented feature spaces oriented toward the retail, residential, or hospitality industries. Places where nature is very much on hand, not necessarily in a literal sense, but sometimes digitally speaking and, to varying degrees, mineral, lush, and hybrid. It’s a mix of nature and technology that’s sure to re-energize the concept of sustainability and create a truly desirable vision of the future!
More than 140 Belgian brands exhibited at the fair among which the Belgium is Design collective presence in TODAY section. In a sector in the throes of change, at a time when the climate emergency and paradigm shifts in the way everyday objects are designed, manufactured and sold are on everyone's lips, the research of the Belgian designers featured in this selection proves that aesthetics, functionality, boldness and sustainability can go hand in hand.
See the complete Belgium is Design selection
RISING TALENTS
The Rising Talent Awards, honoured young designers/researchers for the relevance of their work in the face of digitalisation, which is shaking up our lives and uses. “Two words seemed obvious to us: High technology and Know-how,” comments Dereen O’Sullivan, the Rising Talent Awards Manager for Maison&Objet.
Among other emerging talent, Brussels based Emma Cogné was selected by designer Lionel Jadot - Zaventem Ateliers. Emma Cogné weaves plastic tubes to create zones of privacy and protection in the house.
WHAT'S NEW
Among the various trends space of the fair, the What’s New? In Decor space designed by Elizabeth Leriche dived into the colors and materials that will create the look of our interiors in the world of tomorrow. As an expert in trends, her selection of styles and brand-new items serves as a guidepost for interior designers, buyers, and designers. The selection, in which featured various Belgian projects, showcased an idealized, primal form of nature, in its most dreamlike forms. From the depths of our imagination, the most beautiful places on Earth emerge, which Elizabeth Leriche reveals through three themes: deserts, oceans and the botanical world.
Emma Cogné weaves plastic tubes, which she initially collected in the street or on construction sites and, more often, in factories. “The polypropylene sheaths that I use are intended to protect electrical wires in our homes,” she explains. “They are part of the invisible elements hidden in walls and floors. I reincorporate them into interiors by giving them an ornamental dimension.” In a very “Low-Tech” economy of means, Emma Cogné reinvented this industrial material to create zones of privacy and protection in the house. The frank and utilitarian colours find rhythm and poetry in her hands. “By weaving recycled pipes that I cut to make beads, I chose an elementary material and a process that requires no machine or loom. It is a reverse technology process because I only work with mass-produced materials, offering them another narrative.”
Emma Cogné - Rising Talent Maison&Objet 2024
