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Kassena Soul by Louis Bos

The table that takes you to Africa

For Louis Bos, designing is a means to illustrate my feelings, fascination, ideas and desires. Since childhood I carry pencil and paper everywhere, becoming a passion for designing innovative products. His aim is to use design as a poetic means to create contemporary products with African art and culture aspects. In his products, primary and ergonomic features are less prominent because I am using specific aesthetic design language and incorporating the philosophy of ancient Africa. By means of this, He wants to make the ancient African art and culture widely known in a symbolic way.

The Kasséna Soul collection consists of coffee tables and a side table. The functionality of the tables is less prominent because of the unique aesthetic design language. The GOUNGOGA (drum) are the movable elements of the coffee table that serve as a holder or serving tray and simplify the movement of items on the table. By moving the GOUNGOGA yourself, you give a new look and feel to the table and gives shape to a new day in your spiritual world.

The best known totem of many Kasséna families is the GNONON (crocodile). The GNONON is shown by the pyramid shapes in the tabletop. With this collection I want to create awareness to use a table as originally intended. Moving the GOUNGOGA gives the user the freedom to shape the table himself and brings live at the table.

He's taking you to the Kasséna country in Tiebele, in the south of Burkina Faso. The handmade patterns on the facades of the remarkable Kasséna homes inspired me to design this unique collection of tables. The traditional Kasséna homes are designed with special front doors to protect the residents against enemies.

The handmade patterns are only applied to the facades by the women from the village and symbolize the daily life and spirituality of the Kasséna.The Kasséna Soul collection is his own translation of the Kasséna patterns to contemporary design. In this collection I combined the Kasséna symbols with a number of characteristics of two contemporary Western design styles (Dutch design and Scandinavian design). In this way, he wants to visualize the symbolic Kasséna stories in a poetic way.

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