AW Architektur und Wohnen, Germany

A surging wave, washed ashore.

The French designer and artist Aurélie Hoegy creates installations, furniture, and lighting, using movement as a medium. Through the use of living, flexible materials, she produces objects full of dynamism.

By Jutta Christoph

Her striking creations appear wild at first glance: a sudden movement of the grain, or the surprise of dancing strands that resemble hair. Yet upon closer inspection, the designer’s sculptural objects reveal themselves to be natural fibers, masterfully twisted into woven chairs that reflect the elegance of the material.

It is the symbiosis between two organic materials: rattan, harvested in the Indonesian jungle, and patterned bamboo sourced from tropical regions. Mexican, Brazilian, and Indonesian bamboo is considered the strongest bamboo species in the world. “I wanted to create a dynamic dialogue between these two very different materials,” explains Aurélie Hoegy, who spent a month in a traditional craft workshop in Indonesia to learn more about the use of rattan.

She was deeply impressed by the commitment of the local artisans: “They work with their entire bodies, even using their feet.

“They literally dance with the fiber.” The Wild Fibers collection includes tables, armchairs, and a chaise longue (which is part of the Centre Pompidou’s collection). Each piece begins with a hand drawing, followed by prototypes made as full-scale 3D models.

“Rattan has a life of its own. When you bend it, it guides me in my work,” says the designer, whose studio is located in a former mill in the countryside just outside Paris. All the components and tools she needs are produced there, with the support of specialists skilled in metalwork, engineering, and even hairdressing.

For the Wild Side Stool, the bamboo elements are connected with metal components, while the rattan cords are woven freely around the structure. The interplay of patterns and colors represents a new way of bringing movement into the object. Yet it is not only the design that appears alive through its organic form the material itself is alive: it moves, and it makes sounds.