Side Gallery

Marjan van Aubel is an award-winning solar designer whose innovative practice spans the fields of sustainability, design and technology. 
In collaboration with scientists, engineers and institutions such as Swarovski and ECN.TNO, the Dutch Energy Centre, van Aubel works to promote extreme energy efficiency through intelligent design. From working with expandable materials, to domestically integrating solar cells that mimic the process of photosynthesis in plants, she adds a double function to objects and puts them to work: A table is not just a table, but also a producer of electricity. Through her practice, she strives to redefine our current relationship with solar technology and accelerate its transition to ubiquity.

Graduating from the Royal College of Art (Design Products MA) in 2012 and the Rietveld Academy DesignLAB (BA) in 2009, van Aubel has since exhibited at world-class institutions such as the V&A (London), the Design Museum (London) and the Stedelijk Museum (Amsterdam). Her work is also part of the permanent collection at the MoMA in New York, the Vitra Design Museum, Boijmans van Beuningen Museum, The Montreal Museum of Art, and the National Gallery of Victoria in Australia.

In 2020 she won the ECO coin Award by Next Nature Network, in 2019 a Dutch Design Award chosen by the Public and in 2018 the Climate Action Challenge by What Design Can Do. In 2017, Swarovski named Marjan the Designer of the Future, and in 2016 she received WIRED’s Innovation Award, the Wallpaper Design Award and was chosen to be the Radicale Vernieuwer (Radical Pioneer) Netherlands by Neelie Kroes. She received the London Design festival Emerging Talent medal in 2015 and in 2012 she won the First Prize Dutch Material Award.

Youngmin Kang (born 1969 in Seoul, South Korea) studied painting (BFA/MFA) at Seoul National University and studio art (MFA) at the University of Texas at Austin. He has shown his work in solo shows at Gana Contemporary, Space CAN, Youngeun Museum of Contemporary Art, Project Space Sarubia, all South Korea and O’Kane Gallery, Houston. Group exhibitions include National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Seoul Museum of Art, Reverscape, Jeju Museum of Art, Seoul International Photography Festival, and Gyeonggido Museum of Art, all South Korea.

Youngmin Kang transforms images and objects captured from digital media, architecture or cultural phenomenon into different contexts by expanding the limits of a particular media through changing the format of the information contained within. When modified into a different space, dimension, scale, and media, his provides a moment of clarity about the original medium and references. Specific meaning in each work emerges through the detailed process of manipulation and can be associated with cultural, socio-political, and identity issues.

The designer uses his designs to demonstrate how the garbage we generate can be turned into something of great value. He is writing his legacy by pushing the limits of design and giving objects a new life. As a member of the Seoul-based collective 1S1T, Kang is changing our view of what we think is just trash. In his opinion, he not only creates objects full of beauty, but also things that are representative of his generation.

Boris de Beijer trained as a jewelry designer at the Rietveld Academie in 2011. Since graduating, he has developed his practice in a multidisciplinary manner, without conforming to the boundaries of a specific discipline. Instead, he moves freely between sculpture and applied arts.

Craft techniques have always been central to his practice. He combines these traditional skills with more non-conventional methods, causing imminent surprises that mislead the spectators. His work's form and function are ambivalent, often provoking questions of hierarchical structures in contemporary art and design discourse.

Since his graduation in 2011, Boris has almost exclusively focused on working with synthetic and non-traditional materials. He has managed to develop his very own visual language within his field. Comparable to the peculiar processes of ancient alchemy, he transforms relatively cheap and common resources into new substances reminiscent of higher valued materials, such as glass, minerals, and metals. This way of working adds to the alienating otherworldly sensation his work tends to provoke. 

In 2020 Boris came to a turning point in his career in which he began to investigate different and more traditional materials. Working closely with expert glassblowers from Amsterdam, he has started working on a new series of glassware made exclusively for Side Gallery. Boris has displayed his work in national and international galleries and cultural institutions. He has been included in various national collections such as Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, The Coda Museum, and the MAD Museum in New York.

Andrés Izquierdo (b.1993) is an artist and designer living and working in Madrid. Izquierdo disfigures, mutates, and weaves together an amalgam of fiction, phenomenons, superstitions, myths, or reveries. By twisting them and forcing them to merge on the same landscape, he builds autonomous narratives which break out of his domain. His creative process leans on visions or revelations rather than on intellect or academia. He sees the studio as a sacred place for objects to emerge in the manner of rituals and invocations.

His work explores conflicting physical and philosophical conditions such as divine and perverse, artificial and self-generated, baroque and minimalist, or abstract and hyper-realistic. The results of his investigations conclude in the form of sculptures, functional objects, scenographies, architectures, and immersive installations where spiritual and metaphysical questions raised through perception and illusion discuss the nature of earthly notions such as faith, guilt, time, violence, and awareness.

Donghoon Sohn is the Founder / Designer of Atelier Sohn. Sohn is his last name and means "hand" and "craftsmanship" in Korean. His origin of thinking is based on all-time values and people's daily life in contemporary society.

He is trying to seek new alternatives through experiments and observations. He graduated from Korea national university of arts (K'arts) and took Samsung design membership for two years (2009 - 2010). Then he started his professional carrier at Samsung Electronics Headquarters (2010 - 2016). At Samsung, he worked on product design and user experience design through various projects such as laptops, wearable devices, and smartphones.

He won several international awards like the IF, Red Dot, and Pin Up design. At the same time, he has worked for ATELIER SOHN (2015 - Present). He received various media attention as a rising designer through an exhibition at Milan design week and Paris design week. After graduating from Ecal / University of art and design in Lausanne (2016 - 2017), he has successfully collaborated with Vacheron Constantin, Christofle, Chopard, and Hotel Trois Couronnes. Sohn has also been successful in art direction, object and collaboration projects in living and luxury brands.

Romain Coppin and Alexis Bondoux are two freelance designers, who regularly work together under the name of Messgewand (which is german for “chasuble” a word which, in French, not only means a priestly vestment but also a colorful sporty tank top). Messgewand is a collaborative practice based between Lyon (FR) and Amsterdam (NL). The two designers met eleven years ago, while studying at applied-arts school in Nevers (FR), where they bonded over a shared skepticism regarding the product driven nature of their design education. After seven years of training in product/object design, they now use this discipline as a medium to question its aesthetic conventions and defne their own plastic language.

They explore the concept of mental furniture, midway between functional sculpture and nonfunctional design. To do so they are experimenting with collage and domestic familiarity of sculpture. Through those mediums, they express their interest for the use of art pieces as objects and designed objects as art pieces. This position especially make them answering to professional assignments as much as self-initiated projects with a critical approach toward modes of production and representation. They disrupt the seriality of production by creating a mash-up of low design and craft interventions. 

Their experimentations are visualized using object, furniture, sculpture, image and drawing. By doing so, they try to challenge the contemporary visual codes and rules of the object design feld. Each project is an opportunity to experiment and precise their personal design langage. All of them put together are determining a large research area positioned in a narrow gap between art and design. They see themselves as designers/researchers that have a fascination for aesthetic ambiguity, which is something that they use as a tool to create aesthetic contrasts within their objects, and try to keep their work constantly in between. Always oscillating between sacred and cheap for instance, which is helping them to mix mass culture and avant-garde. Being ambiguous it’s also the way they choose to approach as closely as possible a new discipline related to object/furniture, and to the crossroads of many others.

They use their design background to hack the usual product design process of creating and making such as thinking - sketching - drawing - modeling - making. They see each step of it as a potential fnal proposal instead of having them linked in a global and closed production loop. For Messgewand, it is really more fulflling to experiment all these mediums independently from each other by keeping them in an open relation, where they all have the same hierarchy regarding the notion of fnality. One of their challenges is to display the results of their experimentations in some stages which are not the usual ones. They want their artworks to be “about” design more than being design themselves. Challenging the conventional process enables them to build abstract representations of functional design, based on a maximal and excessive ornamentation.

The intuitive and raw collage is the main part of their practice. Connected to an empirical production process, it became their favourite and most powerful way to produce their pieces so far. It really fts their desires of over materiality and obsessive decoration. It allows them to mix mediums, popular aesthetics and domestic codes. Their work is actually a collage of effects (texture, colors, decoration, accessories) combined with poor material, semi-object and leftovers that they enhance by layering, covering, composition and ornementation. Thanks to that re-reading of found material, they are able to create busy objects made of contrasts and ambiguity between trash aesthetics and plastic radicality.Romain Coppin and Alexis Bondoux are two freelance designers who regularly work together under the name of Messgewand (which is german for "chasuble," a word which, in French, means not only a priestly garment but also a colorful sporty tank top). Messgewand is a collaborative practice based between Lyon (FR) and Amsterdam (NL). The two designers met eleven years ago while studying at the applied-arts school in Nevers (FR). They bonded over a shared skepticism regarding their design education's product-driven nature. After seven years of training in product/object design, they now use this discipline as a medium to question its aesthetic conventions and define their plastic language.

They explore the concept of mental furniture, midway between functional sculpture and nonfunctional design. To do so, they experiment with collage and domestic familiarity of sculpture. Through those mediums, they express their interest in using art pieces as objects and designed objects as art pieces. This position especially makes them answer professional assignments as much as self-initiated projects with a critical approach toward modes of production and representation. They disrupt the seriality of production by creating a mash-up of low design and craft interventions. 

Their experimentations are visualized by using objects, furniture, sculpture, image, and drawing. They try to challenge the contemporary visual codes and rules of the object design field. Each project is an opportunity to experiment and precise their design language. They all put together to determine a significant research area in a narrow gap between art and design. They see themselves as designers/researchers who have a fascination for aesthetic ambiguity. They use this to create aesthetic contrasts within their objects and try to keep their work constantly in motion. For instance, they oscillate between sacred and cheap, which helps them mix mass culture and avant-garde. Being ambiguous, it's also the way they choose to approach as closely as possible a new discipline related to object/furniture and the crossroads of many others.

They use their design background to hack the usual process of creating and making, such as thinking, sketching, drawing, and modeling-making. They see each step of the process as a potential final proposal instead of having them linked in a closed production loop. For Messgewand, it is more fulfilling to experiment with all these mediums independently by keeping them in an open relationship. One of the challenges that they face is displaying their experimentations in unusual stages. They want their artworks to be "about" design rather than being design pieces themselves. Challenging the conventional process enables them to build abstract representations of functional design based on maximal and excessive ornamentation.

They work intuitively and are connected to an empirical production process. This became their favored and most powerful way to produce their pieces so far. It fits their desires of over-materiality and obsessive decoration. It allows them to mix mediums, popular aesthetics, and domestic codes. Their work is a collage of effects (texture, colors, decoration, accessories) combined with poor material, semi-object, and leftovers that they enhance by layering, covering, composition and ornamentation. Thanks to that re-reading of found material, they can create busy objects of contrast and ambiguity between trash aesthetics and plastic radicality.

Nebil Zaman (b.1985) is a Kurdish / Norwegian designer living and working in Oslo. After beginning his studies in Art direction and advertising, Zaman took a turn and went to study traditional woodworking and furniture design at the Oslo National Academy of the Arts. Since graduating Zaman has merged furniture making with his fascination and interest in architecture, art and technology. Based on his upbringing and experiences, he explores how our surroundings affect us socially and culturally. His interest in materials, production techniques and visual languages shine through in his work, investigating topics such as function, form, identity and visual culture.

His latest series of laser cut plaster cast MDF furniture forms, place an emphasis on material and texture. Zaman is most intrigued by the materiality of plaster, it provides a sense of freedom, and a loss of control in the final outcome. While there is extreme precision in the digital fabrication techniques to create the armature, the addition of plaster to the process provides an organic element of expression and randomness.

The new collection of works made exclusively for Side Gallery, is a continuation of Nebil Zaman's previous works in plaster, exploring topics such as function, form, identity and visual culture. The scope of his creative process focuses on the combination of digital fabrication and handcraft methods. Zaman digitally draws or searches for 3D models that interest him. Once the designer is satisfied with the model, he sections the design in 2D, then laser cuts or CNC mills the 2D sections to create the parts, afterwards assembling the newly made pieces into a three dimensional object. The structural base then acts as a fixture to build up thin layers of regular plaster and wood glue, leaving the finished object with a smooth industrial finish.

Zaman explores forms and different typologies of furniture, as well as imagining and creating new ones. Certain pieces have clear and specific functions, while others are more ambiguous and open to another possible purpose. The formal language and aesthetics of Zaman’s designs stem from a fascination with ancient civilizations, archaeological encounters, science fiction and futuristic visions. The Norwegian designer won the ‘DOGA Award for Newcomers’ in 2017, and his project ‘Personal Space’ was acquired by Norway’s National Museum in 2019. In 2022 the designer presented work at London Craft as well as being selected for the group show “Matter” Norwegian Presence durning Salone di Mobile.