While just finishing his degree at Hoogeschool voor de Kunsten in Utrecht Tejo Remy became famous with his radical idea of creating fine design by recycling left-over items. Two of his designs of that period are known worldwide: the ‚Milk-Bottle Chandelier‘ and ‚You Can´t Lay Down Your Memories‘.

Made of inexpensive and recycled items - old milk-bottles, simple electric cable and light bulps for his opulent pendant light fixture and discarded drawers, simply made wooden boxes and a lashing strap for his impressive chest of drawers - these objects were trend setting at a moment where new ideas of sustainability where the talk of the day but also because they were breaking the stereotypes of a design all too slick that did not dare to show any traces of usage.

These objects kept the balance of a sophisticated aesthetic and an intellectual humor and they were innovative also because each single one was a one-of-a-kind that did not allow mass-production. Therefore they were pioneering the upcoming ‚design/art‘ or to quote Tejo Remy ‚design is applied art and art is design without a function‘.

At the turn of the century he and his studio-mate of the midst-1990s Réné Veenhuizen founded their Atelier RemyVeenhuizen that works following a philosophy inspired by the character of Robinson Crusoe who created his paradise by using materials he found on his island and the left-overs of his wrecked ship.

Their ‚Bamboo Chair‘ consists of inexpensive, very flexible slats of bamboo which they bent into semicircular shapes and fixed them together like a basket. Achieved with simple means, this design nonetheless impresses with its fine lines and pure elegance.

The ‚Acccidental Carpets‘- originally a commission of an epilepsy centre - were made of piles of discarded colourful woolen blankets, cut into strips and reassembled in round rampant forms. These gay-looking, lush rugs evoke a cross section of a brain while being soft enough to keep falling epileptics from breaking their skulls.

Meanwhile the smart team is going all out with their reclaiming, recently they recycled second hand design ideas. The inflatable vinyl furniture of the early 1970s were the source of inspiration for a series of chairs and benches but they do not have much to do with the old stuff at all: Instead of blowing up PVC moulds the two Dutchmen inflated them with up to 175 pounds of poured concrete then stripped away the vinyl after the objects set hard. This time these seats are hard instead of soft, heavy instead of light-weight, matte-gray instead of gaudy and enduring instead of evanescent.

Remy and Veenhuizen are convinced that there are enough mass-production objects out in this world already rather there might be a need for clever design and unique ideas that stirr up the minds - and they certainly succeed.