Theme:
Atmosphere: Crafts and design in the public

This autumn, Formkraft will focus on the atmosphere that material culture, technology and aesthetics can add to the public space. And why it is more relevant than ever to include craft makers and designers when state-owned buildings are renovated, when municipalities develop decorative projects and when private actors seek to imbue the modern city with soul and sensuous qualities.

Articles, interviews and reviews are published regularly in October – November – December. Also remember to search for the topic in the archive.

Photo: Glass artist and designer Renata Jakowleff rethinks and redefines the use of materials and techniques for new purposes. Detail.

Editorial

Setting an atmosphere

By Mette Colberg, craft maker and glass designer & Helle Dyrlund Severinsen, MA

With their presence in the public space, decorative projects, art installations and building-integrated art can expose a wide audience to art and culture in everyday settings. With this current theme, Formkraft focuses on the atmosphere that crafts can bring to the public space by virtue of its inherent material culture, techniques and aesthetics. And why it is more relevant than ever to include craft makers and designers when state-owned buildings are renovated, when municipalities develop decorative projects and when private actors seek to imbue the modern city with soul and sensuous qualities.

Terrain af Mariko Wada, fotograf Ole Akhøj. Udsnit

Theme

Crafts in Construction: How crafts can contribute to public spaces

By Anna Rikkinen is a contemporary craft expert at Ornamo Art and Design, Finland

Crafts rely on the traditional knowledge of making where the human hand is preferred over the industrial process. Is there room for craftsmanship and material-based interpretation in the built environment? Can industrial processes learn something essential from crafts and from artists’ way of thinking?

Ilona Rista

Interviews

Atmospheric layers in a human space

By Tyra Dokkedahl

Maria Sparre-Petersen udsmykning af kirke

Masters of materials

By Pernille Anker Kristensen

Mariko Wada, Terrain

It makes no sense to create if you know the outcome ahead of time

By Sara Staunsager, MA in Aesthetics and Culture. Curator of Collections at Trapholt museum of modern art, craft and design.

Places

Art projects enhance the local atmosphere in the Canal District – but don’t lose the ambiguity!

By Annette Svaneklink Jakobsen, Ph.d. og cand.arch., lektor på SDU

Keramik pjece - Middelfart Kommune.

A city told in clay

By Journalist og forfatter Heidi Laura

Review

A sensuous look at Effie and Fanny

Journalist and writer Heidi Laura visited the exhibition Nature. Traces & Reflections at CLAY Museum of Ceramic Art Denmark. In the exhibition, the museum has invited the three prominent Danish ceramicists Malene Hartmann Rasmussen, Manuel Canu and Marianne Nielsen to interpret and revive the historical Danish design movement Skønvirke from around 1900.

Marianne Nielsen, Smørblomst 2, 2021. Foto Sylvain Deleu