ABC - AUTHENTIC BELGIAN CREATIVITY
Fuorisalone Milan, from 16 until 21 April 2008

On the initiative of Design Flanders and Flanders Investment & Trade (FIT), 16 highly creative Belgian designers and companies are exhibiting a selection of their new collections in one main event which takes place in the hype district of the Zona Tortona. ABC – Authentic Belgian Creativity is part of the Fuorisalone programme, organized by Interni in parallel to the Milan International Furniture Fair. For this second edition, a very diverse and original range of products will be on show. Profiling the event as a high-end product design exhibition, ABC-Authentic Belgian Creativity is a collective which has doubled its surface compared to last year venue.

The participating Belgian designers and brands coming from Flanders – Belgium are active on the local and international markets, on various creative fields. Going from in- and outdoor furniture and home environments (domotics, acoustics, kitchen and bath appliances), innovative textile design, glass- and tableware to jewellery, silversmithing and fashion accessories, ABC- Authentic Belgian Creativity is at the cutting edge of all the design territories that can be explored today. Even music will be part of the collective’s daily performances.

By enhancing the value of intelligent and sustainable design using low tech and high tech solutions, ABC collective is combining trendy style and taste with more relevant values, attitudes and contemporary issues such as aesthetics, functionality, ergonomics and friendly, simple but subtle uses. Mixing talents, profiles and practices, this is the richness of this collective that will provide a clearer vision of what is happening in this relatively small but highly creative land.

ABC – Authentic Belgian Creativity reveals therefore an imaginative Belgian ‘window display’ which goes beyond design by exploring different disciplines such as the contemporary crafts, home and urban screening, experimental sound design, new ways of eating and behaving towards the society and in our closest and most private environments. It opens up the frontiers of the classical design fields in order to create emotion, beauty and humanity.

L’Anverre
Glass objects and lighting, ceramics and outdoor furniture
www.lanverre.com

L’Anverre is a multi-disciplinary art collective that has been active since 1986 within the field of art, design and projects for tolerance. Creating art and developing design is the fruit of a common effort. The selection of handmade glass and ceramic containers, the umbellate parasol show us the wide variety of creative media L’Anverre tends to use.


Bram Boo
Contemporary furniture
www.bramboo.be

As an independent designer, Bram Boo, regularly works with Belgian and international manufacturers and brands. By disturbing the usual rules, he aspires to create new ideas and emotions, with a focus on simplicity, function and aesthetic values. Bram Boo is going to present a new range of office furniture called Homeland, composed of a chair, a desk and a cupboard.


Mathias Claerhout Furniture
Contemporary furniture
www.mathiasclaerhout.be

Mathias Claerhout is a self-made man who likes to bring together different materials to come to esthetical and high quality products. His design company, Mathias Claerhout Furniture, aims to distribute his in- and outdoor furniture on an international market. Its most important product is the high quality Deckhopper.


Colect
Contemporary furniture, lighting, linen, jewellery, ceramics and utilities
www.colect.be

In 1998 Katrien Van Hulle, a Belgian interior architect, established “B”, an interior and design shop in Bruges, where she presents “Belgian produces with an A label”, a collection of Belgian furniture, lightning, linen, jewellery, ceramics, utilities to an international audience. When she started Colect in 2007, she aimed to promote her products internationally. The fundamentals of this project are creative originality, quality and correct delivery. In Milan, Colect shows a conceptual furniture range of Belgian designers, such as Siegfried de Buck, Nadirzadeh Peyman and Anita Nevens.


Nedda El-Asmar for Eternum/Gense and Royal Boch and Airdiem
Contemporary silverware
www.nedda.be
www.eternum.com
www.gense.eu
www.royalboch.com
www.airdiem.com


Nedda El-Asmar studied jewellery design and silversmithing. Nedda explores a world of seemingly simple shapes, ideally refined or oddly baroque, mixing classic elegance and a modern approach in a well-balanced, creative manner. Nedda El-Asmar has already won several awards and was elected 'designer of the year 2007' by Interieur Foundation/ Weekend-Knack / Weekend-LeVif/L'Express, Belgium. In Milan, Nedda presents a new cutlery set she designed for Eternum/Gense (B/S), a new breakfast set for Royal Boch (B) and a water pipe for Airdiem (F). Her product Appetize for Eternum/Gense and Narghile for Airdiem, won a 'Henry van de Velde label 2007'.

Helbig Aluminium nv
Design wallsystems
www.helbig.be

Since 1984 Helbig Aluminium has been a well-known Belgian ancillary supplier for interior design, hotel, restaurant, catering and shop fitting. As free-lancedesigner Adriaan Debruyne has designed Pacaya Panels for Helbig Aluminium, panels of standard size with LED RGB lightning integrated in them. Pacaya Panels can be produced in different colours and with various light devices.


Jaga nv
Creative home environments – heating systems
www.theradiatorfactory.com

Jaga brings design to the concept of heating. With innovative technologies that heat better, faster, cleaner, more healthily and environmental friendly, Jaga tends to break through the boundaries of traditional thinking. Childs Play can be seen as a proof. The Heatwave, a sculptured piece by the Dutch designer Joris Laarman, unites details of art with industrial efficienty.


Kelstone
Revolutionary sound design
www.kelstone.be
www.kelst.be

Jan Van Kelst is a singer-songwriter with a musical and technical background. He designed the Kelstone®, a new revolutionary musical instrument with 18 strings, that combines aspects of the keyboard- and guitarinstruments. With the Kelstone®, a new sound emerges.


Sofie Lachaert
Contemporary jewellery, silverware and objects
www.lachaert.com

Sofie Lachaert, designer, active in the promotion of contemporary jewellery and silverware, thinks up, develops and realises many extraordinary objects, installations, exhibitions, both in her galleries in Belgium (Ghent – Tielrode) and elsewhere (f.i. Droog Design, Amsterdam,…). In Milan, she presents a bright green tricycle, a vendors cart, from way back the most authentic and direct way to sell goods, regaining for a few days its traditional function. For this years presentation in Milan, the vendor's cart carries, among other things, the ingredients for 'a splash of colour', including a traditional silver paint box filled with unexpected beauty.


MAXIMALdesign bvba
Contemporary furniture
www.maximaldesign.com

MAXIMALdesign is a leading Belgian design agency founded by designers Maxime Szyf and Gert Verschueren. MAXIMALdesign is specialised in consumer products and corporate identities. With their Soul Ash Solace they aim to appeal to the specific functional needs and emotional circumstances of a cremation funeral. Soul Ash Solace is a cremation coffin with integrated urn.


Bruno Meeus
Contemporary furniture for bathroom and kitchen
users.pandora.be/bruno.meeus

Bruno Meeus' design studio works with the furniture industry, conceiving and developing products and concepts in stainless steel for home: kitchen and bathroom. The designs are always reflecting sobriety, solidity and durability as absolute values leading to a pure and timeless character. Bruno Meeus commits himself to produce ecological technologies, that are reflected in lavabeau® and a new system of extraction hoods, that he will present in Milan.


Niko
Switch systems and Domotics
www.niko.be
www.mysterious.be

Niko is a family company that was founded in 1919 in Sint-Niklaas, Belgium. This company markets its solutions from branches in Belgium, France, the Netherlands, Slovakia, Spain and worldwide via distributors. Niko designs and produces innovative solutions for electrical switching equipment, light control, home automation, door and video phone systems. At Milan, Niko presents Mysterious, an invisible built-in switch.


TecnoSpace
Glass partitioning systems and drywallings
www.tecnospace.com

TecnoSpace, as a leader in glass partitioning systems and drywallings, has set up a creative cell for the development of smart tools and accessories to upgrade your work and living environment. As well as a full grown commercial department, ‘BUZZISPACE.COM’ likes to be a think-tank for young creative minds and experienced business people.


Fabiaan Van Severen
Contemporary in- and outdoor furniture
www.may17.be

Fabiaan Van Severen received a training in painting, but switched to creating furniture, which he also teaches at the CAD in Brussels and at the Katholieke Hogeschool in Malines. His work is often inspired by architecture and the clear purity of the straight line. His show room May 17 in Ghent presents all his collections, like his minimal Fold an Profile tables and his two chairs Fab and Light, which he also shows in Milan.


Joris Vanbriel and Beam-inc
Interior and urban screensystems
www.holocube.eu
www.beam-inc.eu

Joris Vanbriel, master in interior and living design, works at the present as a consultant and designer for Beam-inc, a young advertisement company in Antwerp, Belgium and as a freelance designer for Studio Giovannoni. Together with Beam-inc, Joris Vanbriel designed the holocube. With this fantastic product, it is possible to show video content in a 3D private or urban environment.


Hubert Verstraeten
Contemporary Jewellery, objects and accessories between fashion and design
www.verstraeten.com
www.tamawa.be

Hubert Verstraeten received his training in Pforzheim and opened his workshop in Brussels in 1999. He distinguishes himself from jewellery designers by adopting the approach of applied art so as to come close to a formal language that uses techniques from serial production (3D, electro-erosion, injection moulding) and contemporary plastic materials such as polycarbonate and aramith. In Milan, Hubert Verstraeten is launching his freshly created new brand, Tamawa, composed of new pieces of jewellery, objects and accessories, exclusively made of mini resized and colourful billiard balls.