My second Design Art Night experience at the Fosbury & Sons Boitsfort, co-working space in Brussels, was even more successful in November 2024. Although I liked the format at first sight. It’s now the off-season in design fairs and getting to know 4 Design Studios filled a lacuna. Organiser Maarten Statius Muller (art-design-press-agency) brings together collectors, design professionals and journalists for the 8th time to get to know the design studios and their projects.

This year all participants were authentic and interesting – A2STUDIO, Nortstudio, but what I liked the most was the joint project ‘Binom’ by studio Morevi (Ana Naskidashvili and Frederik Poisquet) from Antwerp and designer Octave Vandeweghe from Mons. Collab Flanders and Wallonia. Textiles and stone.

Georgian Anna and Flemish Frederic met in Antwerp four years ago and set up the ‘Morevi’ studio. The young designers work with textiles. Together they travelled to the Georgian highlands to study the local felt traditions. The first felt patterns and products were discovered by archaeologists in Georgia during excavations dating back to the 2nd millennium BC. Local felt was transported to various countries along the Silk Road. Teka is the name of the felting technique in Georgia. Anne and Frédéric experiment with materials, use only natural pigment (in this case indigo) and give new meanings to an ancient tradition. Octave works with stone. He also presented his solo works, like a jaw-crown made of precious stones (he jokes ‘brushing my teeth before the exhibition’). Together the young people, fascinated by the ideas of cosmism, created a romantic and cosy project – ‘a couch of starry sky in the night’. This couch is made of slate stones, wood and felted wool dyed in indigo colour. The couch resembles a slate roof, inviting you to feel yourself lying on it and contemplating the cosmos. The patterns on the slates represent small galaxies, while the deep indigo coloured felt, which serves as a soothing layer, enhances the celestial experience, making you feel as if you are both lying down and gazing into space. The intense indigo is reminiscent of the high southern sky over Georgia (it’s different in Belgium). Slate stones are a new fascination for Octave, who has set up his studio in the area of the former Mons mines. The project harmonised with Design Art Night!