Robbe Vandewyngaerde, one of the three founders of nomadic design gallery Objects With Narratives, discusses how they nurture relationships with designers in order to create meaningful collaborations.
“Two of the founders of Objects With Narratives (OWN), myself and Nik Vandewyngaerde, started out as practicing architects and designers. Working as architects with designers for private commissions, and as designers with clients requesting bespoke pieces, we gained a certain understanding of what this creative relationship is about.
We also noticed that the connection between the client and designer often needs guidance through a third party (mostly though a gallery or architect) who can bridge-the-gap between both worlds. So when we made the step to start our own contemporary nomad gallery dedicated to Collectible design, we started to rethink and reconnect with what the gallery model meant to us in order to represent this relationship in the best possible way.
As curators we nurture bespoke collaborations in several ways, from helping the total vision come to life, to connecting clients and designers, creating new opportunities and understanding each other’s objectives. Only then can curators, designers and clients reach a symbiotic relationship which is paramount to OWN. Our model is based on total transparency and trust since we believe that these values spark the strongest possible collaboration.
Most of the time a client reaches out to us after seeing the work of a designer we represent. We showcase certain collections from each designer where every object serves as an ‘exemplary object’. The client can then choose one of these objects that serves as the reference for the journey. From here we like to set up a meeting to have a fruitful discussion and clarify the wishes of the client, whether it is about custom colours, sizes, or a total new concept that fits the collection. As the next step we have another talk with our designer to see how to develop the idea in concrete matter. When it’s a suitable time, we also arrange another meeting between the client, designer and us so everyone understands we are working on one project within a similar vision.
From here, with the right parameters from the client, the designer has carte blanche to stimulate their creativity as we fully trust them. As soon as the process starts, we provide regular updates, sketches, samples of the whole process as we believe in an exclusive treatment since it will take several weeks or months to make a bespoke object or interior. Lastly when the piece is delivered we have a final discussion to ensure that the details of the design and the process have been successfully realised.”
www.objectswithnarratives.com | IG: @objectswithnarratives
