What is There: Recycling Design by Kairos Award Winner Katell Gélébart

The MKG presents the artistic work of this year’s KAIROS prize winner Katell Gélébart. The French recycling designer creates clothes, bags, lamps, furniture and other objects and uses only materials that are already available with impressive consistency: packaging from New Zealand households, silk from Indian production surpluses, felt from Soviet army stocks or old linen sacks from Deutsche Post. Other designers have also discovered the concept of recycling for themselves, but Katell Gélébart has pioneered this method for a long time. She opened her first shop for recycled fashion in 1998 in Amsterdam. The shop no longer exists, but its name became the program: ART D’ECO. The 39-year-old activist represents her views and ideas very convincingly and passionately, but does not want to denounce or proselytize. Your work can also be seen as a criticism of consumerism, waste and superficiality. But beyond that, she is excited to see the aesthetic potential of things that others would throw in the trash. The KAIROS Prize, endowed with 75,000 euros, recognizes Katell Gélébart as a creative visionary. Since 2007 it has been awarded by the Alfred Toepfer Foundation to European artists and scientists from the fields of visual and performing arts, music, architecture, film, photography, literature, design and journalism, who give decisive impetus to culture in Europe with their artistic work. Alfred Toepfer Foundation.