Today, we are thrilled to speak with Pauline Leprince, a Paris-based interior architect and designer, known for her bold lines and thoughtful material choices. As the main scenographer for COLLECTIBLE Brussels 2025, she shares insights into her creative process, influences, and vision for the fair.

C: What inspired you to explore the transformation of everyday materials into sculptural and poetic elements?

PL: The exploration of the transformation of everyday materials into sculptural and poetic elements was born from a personal fascination to bring to life my perception of the sensitive charge of the objects and materials that surround us. I like the idea that each material carries a memory, a use, a function that can be diverted or sublimated to reveal another reading, more intimate, more evocative.

This approach is also rooted in my interest in contrasts: between the ordinary and the extraordinary, between functionality and symbolism, between raw material and its narrative potential. I like to work with industrial or everyday materials – metal, glass, textile, brushed stainless steel – and to shift them into a dreamlike or minimalist register, stripping them of their original condition to give them a new presence.

The influence of cinema and theater also plays an essential role in this approach. Like a decor that transforms the perception of a space, I seek to create stagings where light, shadow and scale reveal a latent poetry in these materials often perceived as purely utilitarian. Each project then becomes a kind of metamorphosis, where the form emerges from the dialogue between memory, structure and sensation.

This process is also a reflection on the link between the object and the human. How can a material that we come across daily suddenly become the bearer of an emotion? How can the obviousness of a material be moved towards a sensory or spiritual experience? It is these tensions, these mutations that interest me, in a fragile balance between rigor and sensitivity.

C: Can you share with us your vision for the main areas of the COLLECTIBLE Brussels 2025 and how your scenography will shape the overall experience?

PL: My scenography for COLLECTIBLE Brussels 2025, entitled Mythology of Functionality – A Symbolic Reading, is structured around an exploration of spaces through a narrative and sensory prism. My intention is to create an immersive experience where raw materiality and staging transform the perception of function, diverting uses to reveal a more symbolic reading.

Each zone will be designed as a sequence, where visitors will evolve through a succession of frames and perspectives, their perception constantly reconfigured by light and transparency effects. The lighting, inspired by the work of Henri Alekan and the installations of Dan Flavin, will be modular, inviting an evolving reading of space, where shadow and light redefine shapes and volumes.

The objective is to lead the visitor to question the value of the materials and structures that shape our daily environments. What is often perceived as purely functional or transitory here becomes an element of contemplation, even of sacralization. The mythology of functionality is this idea that the useful can become meaningful, that the ordinary can be transcended, and that space can be experienced as an open narrative, in constant mutation

C: How do you envision the public engaging with the tension between industrial elements and human fragility in your installation?

PL: In Mythology of Functionality – A Symbolic Reading, the tension between industrial elements and human fragility is conceived as an immersive experience where the visitor becomes a sensitive actor in the space. I imagine an interaction where we physically feel this duality: The visitor evolves in an environment that oscillates between constraint and fluidity, between anchoring and movement. 

The contrast between these elements also engages a sensory perception: the touch of a rough material versus the softness of a textile, the harsh light that cuts out the space versus the shadowy areas that absorb and envelop. The adjustable lighting plays a key role, changing the perception of the place according to the spectator’s movements, creating moments of tension and relaxation, of clarity and erasure.

This dialogue between the industrial and the human also evokes our relationship to function and use. I like the idea that the public questions what is structural, what is temporary, what is essential or superfluous. Construction site architecture, often perceived as a simple means to an end, here becomes an end in itself, a space to experience and inhabit differently.

Thus, the installation does not impose a fixed reading, but offers an experience where everyone can project their own story. The space becomes a field of interpretations, where the tension between rigidity and vulnerability resonates with our own perceptions of the world, between strength and fragility, control and abandonment.

COLLECTIBLE: How does your background in architecture and design influence your approach to scenography?

Pauline Leprince: My training in architecture and design deeply influences my scenographic approach, particularly in the way I approach space, volumes and materials. I have a structural approach to scenography, where each element, however poetic, responds to a logic. Architecture taught me to deal with constraints – whether technical, historical or contextual – while seeking to transcend these limits to create an immersive experience.

Design, for its part, made me aware of materiality and interaction with the body. Each project is a research on the emotion that a spatial arrangement can provoke, on the way in which light, texture and modularity interact with the visitor. I like to play with raw materials and compositions that question uses, divert references or superimpose temporalities.

My background in theater and cinema also nourishes my approach. The scenography then becomes a narrative territory, where space is not limited to a static composition but evolves with the viewer's gaze, like a cinematographic shot or a moving stage set. Lighting, inspired by masters like Henri Alekan, plays a central role, not only to highlight contrasts but also to reveal silences and tensions in space. I like to think of my installations as open frames, where light and shadow draw a visual dramaturgy and where the visitor becomes an actor, traversing a constantly changing spatial narrative.

In my scenography work, there is always this tension between architectural rigor, design sensitivity and the emotion of cinematographic and theatrical language. I design my spaces as silent narratives, where form and function respond to each other, and where the viewer's experience is at the heart of the staging.

C: What inspired you to explore the transformation of everyday materials into sculptural and poetic elements?

PL: The exploration of the transformation of everyday materials into sculptural and poetic elements was born from a personal fascination to bring to life my perception of the sensitive charge of the objects and materials that surround us. I like the idea that each material carries a memory, a use, a function that can be diverted or sublimated to reveal another reading, more intimate, more evocative.

This approach is also rooted in my interest in contrasts: between the ordinary and the extraordinary, between functionality and symbolism, between raw material and its narrative potential. I like to work with industrial or everyday materials – metal, glass, textile, brushed stainless steel – and to shift them into a dreamlike or minimalist register, stripping them of their original condition to give them a new presence.

The influence of cinema and theater also plays an essential role in this approach. Like a decor that transforms the perception of a space, I seek to create stagings where light, shadow and scale reveal a latent poetry in these materials often perceived as purely utilitarian. Each project then becomes a kind of metamorphosis, where the form emerges from the dialogue between memory, structure and sensation.

This process is also a reflection on the link between the object and the human. How can a material that we come across daily suddenly become the bearer of an emotion? How can the obviousness of a material be moved towards a sensory or spiritual experience? It is these tensions, these mutations that interest me, in a fragile balance between rigor and sensitivity.

C: Can you share with us your vision for the main areas of the COLLECTIBLE Brussels 2025 and how your scenography will shape the overall experience?

PL: My scenography for COLLECTIBLE Brussels 2025, entitled Mythology of Functionality – A Symbolic Reading, is structured around an exploration of spaces through a narrative and sensory prism. My intention is to create an immersive experience where raw materiality and staging transform the perception of function, diverting uses to reveal a more symbolic reading.

Each zone will be designed as a sequence, where visitors will evolve through a succession of frames and perspectives, their perception constantly reconfigured by light and transparency effects. The lighting, inspired by the work of Henri Alekan and the installations of Dan Flavin, will be modular, inviting an evolving reading of space, where shadow and light redefine shapes and volumes.

The objective is to lead the visitor to question the value of the materials and structures that shape our daily environments. What is often perceived as purely functional or transitory here becomes an element of contemplation, even of sacralization. The mythology of functionality is this idea that the useful can become meaningful, that the ordinary can be transcended, and that space can be experienced as an open narrative, in constant mutation

C: How do you envision the public engaging with the tension between industrial elements and human fragility in your installation?

PL: In Mythology of Functionality – A Symbolic Reading, the tension between industrial elements and human fragility is conceived as an immersive experience where the visitor becomes a sensitive actor in the space. I imagine an interaction where we physically feel this duality: The visitor evolves in an environment that oscillates between constraint and fluidity, between anchoring and movement. 

The contrast between these elements also engages a sensory perception: the touch of a rough material versus the softness of a textile, the harsh light that cuts out the space versus the shadowy areas that absorb and envelop. The adjustable lighting plays a key role, changing the perception of the place according to the spectator’s movements, creating moments of tension and relaxation, of clarity and erasure.

This dialogue between the industrial and the human also evokes our relationship to function and use. I like the idea that the public questions what is structural, what is temporary, what is essential or superfluous. Construction site architecture, often perceived as a simple means to an end, here becomes an end in itself, a space to experience and inhabit differently.

Thus, the installation does not impose a fixed reading, but offers an experience where everyone can project their own story. The space becomes a field of interpretations, where the tension between rigidity and vulnerability resonates with our own perceptions of the world, between strength and fragility, control and abandonment.