Postuum

Annelies Desmet-Wiesbauer is the woman behind the Belgian label Postuum. Describing her in one word would be close to impossible. She is jewelry designer, a philosopher and a taxidermist that curates an online gallery and webshop called Postuum.

We asked this multitalented lady our 10 famous questions, fell in love with her work and decided to collaborate. More on that very soon!

1. How would you describe what it is you do?
That’s about the most difficult and yet most frequently asked question I get.You would think I’m trained by now and have a ready-made answer but sadly I don’t.
What I do isn’t easy to explain in short and this tends to make people uneasy. We are used to everything being clear, short, fast and unambiguous.
In an attempt to solve this I created the label Postuum to give a name to everything I do. Postuum now works as an online gallery, webshop and design studio. In everything I do, focus lies on natural material, craftsmanship and aesthetics. This translates in a combination of jewelry, taxidermy, interior design, photography and more…
To say that Postuum is a platform would be wrong, because I’m just one person. It’s a combination of forces, of different design languages that emerge into something new.
The people, including me, that are featured under the Postuum label also share a certain philosophy, one that stands for beauty, integrity, respect for techniques and nature.

2. At what time do you start your day and what do you do first?
Around 8, earlier when I go running, later in the weekends.
It all starts with coffee, or if I’m hung over with tea. The British were right all along, you know.

3. What is the reason you started doing what you do? What makes you so passionate about it?
In everything I do, write or make, I look for some form of beauty that comforts or activates me. What I do, is constantly looking for things that make me passionate, it’s inherent to my way of living.
Before I started Postuum, the things I made or found just didn’t have a name or standardized form. Now that they do, it’s easier for me to communicate with the outside world about what moves me.
I tend to set high standards for my environment and myself because I feel we have some responsibility towards the life we were given. One of my main goals now is to try and explore more social or ecological relevant issues, like putting the emphasis on sustainable design or looking for new inventions in in bio-art or fabric design.

4. What or who is your source of inspiration?
Seen as I am secretly a philosopher by education my greatest inspiration still comes from the written word.
Thomas Kuhn, Michel Houellebecq, Kierkegaard, Maurice Blanchot, Albert Camus, Thomas Mann…I think that, above everything else, words move me the most.

5. Which is your all time favorite design?
I would say nature, but that might be a bit to easy.
The work of Hussein Chalayan has always intrigued me, because he makes interdisciplinary cross overs, just like jewelry designer Ted Noten,…
Or maybe Theo Jansens’ strandbeesten.
I could never pick one, there are too many and I don’t even know half of everything that exists.
If you think of design as ‚giving shape’ even music is design, no?
In that case I definitely can’t answer this question.

6. Do you think you’ll keep walking down this path in the future or do you have other creative calls?
I have a lot of calls! Before I die I want to be a successful designer, philosopher, gallery owner, make the world a better place, travel everywhere and be at home a lot, read every possible book and memorize at least ten operas.
Let’s say my future is sometimes uncertain, but always very well filled.

7. Which piece of work would you consider your very own masterpiece?
The label Postuum. The whole of things that fall under postuum and the way they are presented, combined and developed.
But you will never hear me say I produced a masterpiece, you asked the question. Horrible question.

8. If you had a time machine, in what year would you be living?
I think I would go into the future, and then come back and try to anticipate on ecological disasters.
If I know what accidents or misfortune will occur, I can prevent them.
That would make me superman.
No, batman.
Definitely batman.

9. Cookies and milk or chips and soda?
Chips and soda. It’s a conspiracy, can’t have one without the other.

10. If you could give yourself one single piece of advice before you started this adventure, what would it be?
Cura sui, I found it in the writings of Michel Foucault, you should look it up sometimes.