With 20 to watch, Flanders DC presents twenty emerging talents, who recently took their first steps in the worlds of design or fashion. We believe they will have great success in the future.

Who is Joe Sterck?

• studied interior design and later furniture design (VOMO) at Thomas More University College Mechelen
• was part of the Belgium is Design selection for the Milan Salone Satellite 2023
• presented his work at the Art & Design Fair 2023

A design depends on a strong concept. I make a statement with my creations over and over again. I find it fascinating to have a voice in public debate or to encourage people to reflect through my work. Aesthetics and form are nice extras. For example, I played with the boundary between art, sculpture and design in my first design. By conceiving the table top as a separate element, you can literally release the table from its function, causing it to lose its identity and become a sculptural object.

While I love the formal freedom of the visual arts, the functional nature of design gives me a useful point of reference. It works well for me to work within a defined framework with certain rules that I can also question.

As a starting designer, my practice today mainly requires investment. At the same time, it allows me to experiment and produce my own creations. Like fast fashion, mass-produced design is more likely to be considered waste. That’s why I want to make objects by hand that people can cherish and that can last from generation to generation. However, I want to try to find the middle ground between these manually created objects and a more standardised version, so that I can please more people. I don’t know whether technological developments will be able to help me with this. With my last project, I went directly against artificially intelligent tools that could take over our role as designers. I created unique objects with the four elements of nature.