Those Southern Swedish Design Genes

After a successful run during the past edition of the Dutch Design Week, Kajsa Willner’s What’s Your DNA is heading back home. The exhibition, which features the work of nine designers from the Scania region, is now open in Malmö’s Form Design Center.

“Evaluating the designers’ varied forms of expression and profiles in terms of their genre, taste, material usage and approach creates a dynamic in the exhibition, in which each work is showcased individually whilst also contributing to a clearly multifaceted whole,” explained Willner.

What’s Your DNA features work from outstanding local representatives in the varied fields of fashion, furniture design, conceptual design, industrial design, crafts and glass art. Their common denominator? “In addition to great talent, it’s the strength to forge their own path and a stubborn conviction that everything is possible,” added the curator.

There’s the work of Andréason & Leibel, a studio just outside Malmö working with furniture and lighting commissions as well as unique studio pieces. Glen Baghurst creates furniture and objects through a collaborative relationship with craftspeople —for example, for this show, he worked together with a factory that has been making church bells for more than three centuries.

Hanna Hansdotter focuses on object based on the traditions of glass blowing. Interdisciplinary designer Jenny Nordberg searches for alternatives to mass production with brutalism-inspired proposals, while Naemi Gustavsson is driven by the same sustainable search in her clothing studio.

Kunsik Choi turns observations of people’s daily lives into fodder for his cabinetmaking practice. Furniture designer Ola Giertz explores the timeless qualities of design, while Stoft Studio explores the effect of movement and sound on the objects they create. Sara Robertsson left Swedish brand Weekday to start her eponymous jewellery brand, with designs that marry poetry and clean cut lines in an organic minimalist style.

The exhibition, in turn, challenges these nine names to “image their DNA in shape, material and experience.” The response comes in the shape of Hanna Hansdotter’s oddly shaped glass pieces, Naemi Gustavsson’s heat-programmed textiles and Kunsik Choi’s brass “cabinetmaking.”

What’s Your DNA is on display until January 7