Brave Blooms is an immersive holistic futuristic design showcase of 25+ leading local designers & artisans, including upcycled designs. Holistic design reconnects us back with nature, encouraging sustainable, ethical and healthy design choices that are in harmony with our soul, goals & nature.
The exhibition responds to the current global crisis. Humans are fast destroying the things that gives us life; we are facing global warming, limited water supplies, pollution, deforestation, mass animal extinction, rising energy costs and declining oil reserves. Our connection to nature is vital, to create balance and peace in our lives, to enable us to co-exist with nature is a pathway to conserving a world that sustains us.
The bloom of a flower is a symbol of courage, strength and unity and has been considered the enlightenment of the plant. Brave Blooms also signifies the collaboration of nature, the flower doesn’t bloom without the sun, soil, water and the bee that pollinates.
The showcase will cover core themes and principles of holistic, ethical and sustainable design, interior styling, conscious living, community, ritual and mindfulness.
OPENING NIGHT
An immersive experience of ritual, art, design, projections, colour and texture. Each attendee will receive a Maidenii Kina Quinquina floral cocktail on arrival and a goodie bundle to take away.
26th March
Two Sessions:
6:15pm or 7:30pm (Ticketed via Eventbrite)
We thank our Product Sponsors:
Bennetto and The Red Balloon Candy Artisans for their valuable contribution to our goodie bundles and Maidenii for sponsoring our floral cocktail.
Disclaimer: This project is to the best of our knowledge mostly sustainable, ethical, holistic and cruelty free. Though due to the tight time frames and the challenge of sourcing appropriate holistic, sustainable and ethical materials, some designers have opted for materials with synthetics and wool. The aim of the project is to inspire, educate and to encourage design choices that have the least amount of impact on the environment. The designers use and support materials to the best of their knowledge and capability to adhere to holistic design philosophy.
Covid Refund Policy: Should the opening event not proceed due restrictions, ticketed patrons will receive a partial refund and you will still receive the goodie bundle we are creating for you.
Presented by Tracy Quertier
Instagram: @quertier_design
Videos
Biasol
Interior and Furniture Designer
Jean-Pierre Biasol runs the multidisciplinary design studio Biasol, influenced by his Italian heritage with respect for the naturally diverse working processes common within European design practices. With a focus on the design of interior spaces, building typologies, products, and branded environments, Biasol work collaboratively with Australian and international clients to realise spaces.
Beeline Design
Furniture Design
Beeline Design originated out of a love of crafting beautiful timber furniture using traditional joinery techniques. The brand was formed by Adam Brislin, a cabinetmaker by trade, and former fashion designer Lucy Grant. Each piece is handcrafted with precision and care. Perfect design and exceptional craftsmanship underpin every detail in their collections. They don’t do throwaway furniture – each piece is produced in their Melbourne-based workshop using sustainably sourced timbers and the highest quality materials and finishes.
Candice Perese
Artist
Candice is an emerging artist originally from New Zealand, now residing in Victoria, Australia. She holds a Bachelor of Visual Arts and has exhibited in New Zealand, France and Australia. Her artworks on heavy cotton rag paper explore the diversity of range in colour and pigment from layering wax pencil, and borrows from printmaking the relief and indentations created in the pressing process. They are textural works, leaving slight indentations from pressure applied on the surface and a gentle waxy satin sheen is left behind from the overlapping colours. The compositions are often organic fluid forms, at times referencing objects handmade, or simplified natural formations.
Curated Spaces
Upcycled and Sustainable Furniture
Curated Spaces was founded by Pip Newell in 2017, three years on Curated Spaces has grown into a marketplace with over 20 selling partners sourcing furniture from across Australia. Curated Spaces is all about great design made accessible, furniture and objects that are sustainably sourced and recycled from around the world. Alongside vintage pieces, they sell products by industry peers and their own collaborative designs.
Daniel Barbera
Furniture Designer
Daniel is a furniture designer, using classic materials such as marble, bronze, steel and timber to forge a refined aesthetic. Designed for use in domestic and commercial architectural spaces, our product ethos is focused around logical design outcomes and process orientated workings; fusing old industrial techniques with modern technology and high craftsmanship, delivering collectable pieces for future generations.
Dasa Ceramics
Ceramicist
Hana Vasak is the creator behind Dasa Ceramics. She creates hand-built sculptural vessels, exploring new forms that often take visual inspiration from sculpture, natural forms, ancient pottery and her travels. Pieces are often attached to a personal narrative, they are made in a slow and considered way, one piece evolves into another and allows Hana to continue refining her studio based practice to create pieces that merge sculpting and hand building techniques whilst subtly playing with shape, form and texture.
David Lee Pereira
Mural Artist
David Lee Pereira is a practicing visual artist whose paintings, illustrations, large scale murals and public installations delve into the fluidity of gender, sexuality and identity exploring these through the recurring themes of dysphoria and interpersonal relationships. Influenced by the work of impressionist and surrealist artists Georgia O’Keefe, Dali and Munch, and paying homage to baroque ikebana and dutch still life, Pereira’s floral expressions range from beautifully brutal to joyous and intimate and are overflowing with symbolism and narrative.
Dean Norton
Furniture Designer
Dean is a Furniture Designer who develops products that consider form, function, refined detailing, and harmony in materials. Drawing inspiration from a number of contemporary Influences, he strives to create enduring pieces that connect on an emotional level, merging a balance between art and design whilst maintaining a minimalist design aesthetic.
Ella Reweti
Ceramicist
Ella Reweti is a Melbourne-based ceramicist working mainly with slipcasting techniques to create functional, sculptural pieces inspired by industrial architectural forms. Ella’s ceramics practice is largely self-taught and is constantly evolving to encompass new skills and techniques, accumulated through play and experimentation. Rather than being ‘thrown’ on a wheel, the slipcasting process uses plaster moulds into which liquid clay is poured. The pieces can be interchangeable, so her collection has coherence but is one-of-a-kind!
Eun Ceramics
Ceramicist
Jessica Choi is a Melbourne based Ceramicist and owner of Eun Ceramics. Pairing minimalist designs with delicate textures, Jessica creates unique pieces inspired by contemporary art. Her refined style lends well to decorative and functional versatility. Each piece is handmade using locally sourced materials in small batches.
Fomu Design
Furniture Design
Andrew Beveridge and Gabrielle Beswick are the designers and co-founders of Fomu, a Melbourne based design studio with an aim to design and create objects which embody simplicity while using beautifully considered form and details to enhance the overall functionality of the design. All Fomu products are manufactured in Australia from ethically sourced materials.
Heimur
Furniture Design
Heimur is a Melbourne-based, handmade furniture and framing outfit dedicated to creating modern furniture that meets modern demands. Established in 2015 by Nathan Lawrence, originally as a passion project, Heimur has now grown to a nationally-renowned label fuelled by the tenet that all furniture should be high-quality, ethical, practical and available for all.
Loom Rugs
Rug Design
Doan Bilgis of Loom Rugs has played an integral part to the interior design scene for many years, he believes that beautiful rugs fulfil the desire for natural warmth and texture in the spaces we inhabit, reaching beyond the visual to become a sensory experience “a beautiful rug is the heart of a beautiful room”. They design and source handmade rugs from around the world.
Marc Pascal
Lighting Designer
Marc Pascal’s design practice is driven by his passion to empower spaces using light and colour. Marc draws his inspiration from the intelligence and beauty of forms observed in nature. The boldness and freedom of Marc’s work very much reflects his nature, his objects are designed to bring an intimacy and a dynamic energy to the spaces they inhabit.
Marta Figueirdo
Furniture Design
The concept of bridging Portuguese & Australian design is the vision of architect Marta Figueiredo, founder of Figgoscope Curates. Marta’s practice focuses on integrating refined old techniques and materials to the contemporary design, achieving the perfect balance of innovative design, exceptional quality materials and timeless craft. Where heritage meets design.
Mark Stoner
Artist
Mark Stoner is a Melbourne based artist with work in the collections of the National Gallery of Australia, National Gallery of Victoria and regional galleries. He has many large-scale public art installations including Docklands, Geelong Foreshore, Royal Botanic Gardens Cranbourne and Adelaide Airport. Mark’s work is influenced by landscape, particularly its topographical lines and markings. His recent work with stone has investigated strata and what lies beneath.
Mockturtle
Surface Designer
Joey Peter of Mockturtle specialises in creating wall textures and specialist painting effects. Joey has a background in graphic design, trained in theatre and set painting, and currently studying furniture design. Joey is highly motivated in areas of sustainable and holistic design, and believes in an artistic approach to “making” and the balance of pragmatism and creativity in the work environment.
Nick Azidis
Visual Projection Artist/Fine Artist
Nick is a new media artist and projection illusionist specialising in large-scale projections, in both digital and analogue mediums, and has compiled a diverse body of work over nearly three decades as a producer, content developer/creator and technician. Nick is interested in storytelling and creating eternal memories and changing viewer’s perceptions through image and light.
Rachel Derum
Mixed Media Artist
Rachel Derum is a mixed media artist, working primarily in the medium of analogue paper collage and limited edition giclee prints. Rachel explores themes of identity, perception and consciousness through her surreal, figurative compositions.
Rose Staff
Visual Projection/ Fine Artist
Rose works with moving image and live performance in a range of settings around the world, from contemporary art installations to large-scale vibrant projections at festivals. Using experimental hybrids of traditional and digital art forms, Rose explores how contemporary phenomena such as communication technologies and audio-visual space influence our perception of the modern world.
Ryan L Foote
Multidisciplinary Designer
R. L. Foote Design Studio was founded by installation Artist, Designer and Food Designer. Ryan’s career is diverse and ranging; from across Art, Design, Food & Drink Design, Theatre, Fashion, Events and Sustainability. He is best known for creating unique event based Artworks that involve Food, Fashion, Art, Design, that installations that envelop and entice all the guests senses.
Sandra Githinji
Multidisciplinary Designer
Sandra Githinji is a Kenyan-born, Melbourne-based designer. In her professional work as an Interior Designer at an architecture practice. She runs her own independent design practice, which focuses on objects and space. Sandra’s design philosophy is informed by a fascination with the history of things. By combining historical research and listening intently to her clients’ experiences and memories, she weaves a depth of cross-cultural storytelling into every space and object. She strives to connect people to a shared awareness of the present, as both a continuum of the past and a platform for the future.
www.sandragithinji.com
Secateur Me Baby
Multidisciplinary Designer
Mike Sullivan is a Melbourne based designer and recently established Secateur Me Baby as homage to his two loves and mediums; woodwork and horticulture. Secateur Me Baby creates pieces that are wavy, energetic and emphasise light and shadow; bringing a smile to your face.
Simone Panepinto
Nature Photographer
Simone’s connection with nature and wildlife has grown since moving to Melbourne from Italy 6 years ago. After volunteering his photography services he has learnt to be close to the real animal world and has changed his perspective to see the important role they play to balance the life on the planet. His work is based in Melbourne and especially addressed to pet photography.
Tantri Mustika
Ceramicist
Tantri Mustika is a Melbourne based ceramicist who makes a range of light-hearted and colourful hand built ceramics. Her current collection of work incorporates a modern spin on traditional terrazzo tiling, applying it to bespoke functional forms making terrazzo adaptable to everyday life.
Tantri is currently creating works in small batches, each and every piece finishes with no pair identical and is unique in patterning and colour due to the techniques and processes used.
Sozou
Lighting Designer
Kohtaroh Colwell-Matsuura is the founder of SOZOU studio, he was born and raised in Tokyo and now based in Melbourne. Cultivating his passion and philosophy based on various perspectives; east and west, emotional art and beauty of functionality. The studio produces lighting and objects which act as a poetic word in a space without overwhelming its personality. Each object is hand made and finished in Melbourne workshops ensure the highest quality, and to enhance the emotion-centric studio philosophy.
Tantri Mustika
Ceramicist
Tantri Mustika is a Melbourne based ceramicist who makes a range of light-hearted and colourful hand built ceramics. Her current collection of work incorporates a modern spin on traditional terrazzo tiling, applying it to bespoke functional forms making terrazzo adaptable to everyday life.
Tantri is currently creating works in small batches, each and every piece finishes with no pair identical and is unique in patterning and colour due to the techniques and processes used.
Tracy Quertier
Holistic Interior Stylist / Textile Designer / Floral Art and Photography
Tracy Quertier is the Curator and Creative Director of Brave Blooms and launches her holistic design business Quertier as part of the project. Quertier is multidisciplinary design studio that offers holistic interior services, art consultancy, textile designs, floral art and photography. Tracy’s passion for interiors, design and art together with her concern for the current global climate crisis, the inhumane treatment of animals and a strong calling to live a more sustainable, ethical, compassionate and conscious lifestyle are her driving motivations for founding Quertier.
www.quertier.com @quertier_design
Volker Haug
Lighting Designer
Volker directs an international lighting design practice based in Melbourne, Australia. The multidisciplinary design and production teams work on lighting concepts across architectural scales and contexts. The Studio adopts a spirited approach to design that engages with the curiosity of the viewer to produce a decorative lighting range that is at once playful and functional, sculptural and surprising. Working with metals, stone, ceramic and glass, each light is assembled and finished by hand in his workshop.
Aaron McKenzie
Multidisciplinary Designer
Aaron McKenzie is a multifaceted bespoke designer/artist coming from a background in traditional sign writing and film. Current works combine bespoke hand painted plywood artworks including side tables, screens, wood tiles, and plant pots.