Meet Annabelle Schneider

Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Annabelle Schneider. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Hi Annabelle, appreciate you sitting with us today to share your wisdom with our readers. So, let’s start with resilience – where do you get your resilience from?

Resilience in My Practice as a Spatial Designer and Artist. As a spatial designer and artist who explores spaces for wellbeing, and delves into themes of vulnerability, pain, and human connection, resilience is an integral part of my practice. Here’s where I draw my resilience from:

Designing spaces that evoke deep emotional responses necessitates mental strength. The process of conceptualizing and actualizing these environments requires intense focus and creative problem-solving. I draw resilience from my ability to stay mentally agile, navigating obstacles and continuously refining my vision to create impactful experiences that mostly foster community and a reconnect to the self in the present moment. With my work, I aim to eliminate the clutter of overstimulation we’re often surrounded with and direct our focus to the essential we – as humans – should focus on to be whole and healthy.

However, I myself often navigate between the extremes with one goal, to find emotional strenght! The process involves personal risk, exposure and requires courage. I do this in order to design spaces that authentically confront themes of vulnerability – I need to place myself in positions that demand emotional resilience in order to profoundly understand and create from a point of deep empathy. I therefore often place myself in emotionally charged situations. My ability to process these emotions and channel them into my work is a testament to my resilience, allowing me to create spaces that resonate profoundly with others.

Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?

I am an award-winning, Swiss born / New York based, dual spatial designer and brand strategist with an accomplished background in branding and spatial installations – physical and virtual – with a strong focus on well-being.

I own a graduate degree in Design Management, and a AAS and MFA in Interior Design from Parsons, New York. My journey in design and culture started early on with event productions for music festivals and interior- and cultural-brands. For the next 7 years, I was developing global brand strategies, whilst my curiosity of how and why we are inhabiting spaces, extended my focus towards building meaningful stages and places for people to produce memories.

I am an educator at PARSONS where I teach Interior Design Studios and Inclusive Retail. My work focuses on spatial well-being and how multi-sensory and layers of movement, technology, light and sound can improve a present experience set in interiors and virtual worlds.

BREATHE WITH ME (2024) is an immersive installation commissioned by the Consulate General of Switzerland in New York, shown during NYCxDesign in May 2024 at WSA NY.

BEING IN BED (2023) debuted for NYCxDesign and continued to evolve and for Alcova during Art Basel Miami Beach ‘23: An immersive experience and performance between the physical and virtual which meshed technology with tactility more critically and humanely. Mostly, to improve mental wellbeing, while considering the bed as the only place in the we call “home” in the near future.

I run my own studio and work at the intersection of art and spatial designs. I use design as a medium and speculation that fosters forward-thinking ideas of how we can improve everyday life. My designs are research-based and immersive. I investigate the historical, material and social forces that shape the discipline of design today and in the future with the goal to improve the sense of comfort, belonging and wellbeing. Whether designing for a client or developing self – initiated projects, the studio applies the same rigorous attention to context, processes and details.

My analytical nature translates into immersive, multi-sensory visual outcomes, products and strategies tied to the experiential stories of spaces. Applied methods challenge the conventional approach to materials and structures, while I draw on my ongoing fascination with ephemeral interiors, fashion and wearable- or visually immersive technology, to advance her work and collaborations with industry and institutions and build environments that stir dialogue and moments to explore, play and reflect.

If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?

Empathy (for Others and our World)
Active Listening (Especially different Opinions)
Curiosity about the world (and those in it)
Vulnerability. (With fierce Boundaries)
Self-Awareness (and Humor)
Collaborative Spirit (we Rise together)

Before we go, maybe you can tell us a bit about your parents and what you feel was the most impactful thing they did for you?

To raise me without a TV but letting me drawn and build the world as I imagine on paper, in forests etc.
And eventually their generous and unselfish gesture of letting me go and explore on my own – across oceans.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.annabelleschneider.com
• Instagram: annabellesbubble
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/

Image Credits

All images depict Annabelle Schneider’s most recent immersive experience for spatial wellbeing. An installation commissioned from the Consulate General of Switzerland, presented at WSA NY during NYCxDESIGN in May 2024.

Photos by Kyle Knodell for the Consulate General of Switzerland in New York.