Future Strategies

During the past years we visited a number of exhibitions that in different capacities presented ideas and speculations on the future.In Panorama Konstantin Grcic draws from his own works, Sense No-sense examine recent Dutch design experience and technology and The Fab Mind consider design approaches to social issues. Closer to home, curator Petra Lilja departed from recent resurrection of craft for The Future is Handmade, outlining the current state of craft-oriented design and studio production. It’s a diverse collection of obejcts ranging from more traditional craft (Carsten Nilsson) to conceptual projects (Studio Formafanstasma) using newly developed manufacturing methods (Staffan Holm).

One Square Straw by Katrin Greiling, Editions in Craft, Photographer Hironori Tsukue

Katrin Greiling has interpreted and recontextualized the ancient relation between mankind and straw, the One Sqaure Straw is a spray painted stool made out of metal and straw, it appears to be an almost mysterious entity, capable of transcending the modern and the archaic. The One square Straw originates in another craft initiative, Farmer’s Gold by Editions in CraftKiki van Eijk’s handmade wire table lamp from the idiosyncratic Floating Frame collection, is a reflection on form, function and fiction. Conversely, Uglycute’s nest of tables is crudely made out of cheap particle boards in a characteristically anti- aesthetic, uglycute, fashion.

Floating Frame Lamp by Kiki van Eijk, image The Future is Handmande
Precious by Staffan Holm
Raw Armchair by Jens Fager, Muuto, image Muuto

Other objects deal more directly with conditions of production, Precious by Staffan Holm is a nondescript stool that has been mended with a 3d printed titanium prothesis, serving both as a comment on production/consumption behavior and suggesting a field of application for 3d printing. The entire series Precious (not on display here) also puts more conventional materials to unconventional use for mending broken everyday items.  Raw is an attempts to merge craft with mass production, Jens Fager’s armchair is made out of elements cut by hand with a bandsaw giving the surface an organic and irregular feel. The concept of Raw has also been expanded into a series of products available from Muuto. On the other hand Fredrik Paulsen’s traditional milking stool (Mjölkpall), stained and dyed in his highly characteristically manner, attempts a more transparent and direct approach to the designer – user relationship. Working in a studio rather than with a manufacturer and distributor, the milking stool is available directly through designer owned platform LAST edition, cofounded by Paulsen. Paulsen is also a founding member of the annual Örnsbergsauktionen, an auction for studio craft and design.

The works presented by Formafantasma, Bashko Trybek and Fredrik Andersson all have a defining conceptual approach to materiality and process. Andersson’s wooden cascets incorporates many different types of wood and wood (bi-)products, Formafantasma’s urns and bowls are sourced from limestone, flour and agricultural waste, while Trybek has made objects out of coal inspired by techniques used in the 1970s by polish coal miners.

The conceptual approach is perhaps most evident in the fashion section with works by established anti-establishment fashion designer Anne Sofie BackAia Jüdes mixing traditional craft techniques with symbols of conspicuous consumption and Silo Studio’s styrofoam accessories.

The Future is Handmade doesn’t purport to represent a coherent movement, a collective thought or a singular development, rather the exhibition highlights contradictory themes  as well as overlapping practices. This is not to suggests that the exhibition is an arbitrary collection of things, but as the catalogue text by Dennis Dahlqvist further elaborates, there is a common point of departure, or perhaps a shared impulse. Dahlqvist argues that craft, in the recent decades, has increasingly served as a vehicle to critique and break away from the syntax of mass production and aesthetic values of modernism, and at the same time include new materials and technologies.