20FIRST | Helder Suffenplan

Helder Suffenplan is a German visual artist who makes sculptural wall and floor tapestries from a studio in Berlin. Born in Cologne in 1971, he studied art history, interior design and communication design, then spent more than two decades in creative direction for publishers, luxury houses and art institutions before turning to his own work full time in 2023.

Words, signs and symbols are his raw material, treated less as messages than as forms with an emotional charge. The pieces weave symbolic natural fibres together with technical yarns that shift colour and light, an encounter between centuries-old rug-making and industrial material research. Formats range from mid-scale wall works to room-filling installations, and the series has earned two Red Dot Grand Prix awards and the Design Award of the Federal Republic of Germany.