For the first time, the Product Design Department of Estonian Academy of Arts will join the lineup of Stockholm Furniture & Light from 5 to 9 February, 2019. Alongside 29 design schools and 37 young, upcoming designers and design studios from altogether 21 countries, Estonian Academy of Arts will be exhibiting at the Greenhouse section of the fair, booth C18:37.
On view in Stockholm, Sweden, are 1:1 furniture prototypes designed during two studio classes of the Autumn 2018 Semester. 3rd year BA students have engaged with design through the medium of chair. “I wanted my chair to reflect on women’s empowerment and acknowledge both our resilience as well as fragility,” says Gisela Osi of her slightly heavy, right-angled aesthetics, reminiscent of that of one of the very first Estonian women architect’s, Valve Pormeister’s. No less uninhibited in their approach, 1st year MA students have been tasked to define their own design briefs in response to the manufacturers’. “Our objective has been to encourage students to design responsibly,” says Heikki Zoova, EKA Associate Professor of Product Design. Henri Kaarel Luht, a graduate of Interior Architecture of Estonian Academy of Arts, now one of his students at the Department of Product Design, for example, has explored the future of reconfigurable living spaces and designed a dual-purpose TETRIS sofa that also doubles as a workstation.
For most young designers, participation in the jury-assessed Greenhouse section of Stockholm Furniture & Light will be the first time to receive international exposure and recognition of this scale. Scandinavia’s leading platform for young design talent, Greenhouse is to engage students in a meaningful dialogue with the industry as well as to contribute to young designers’ confidence in their own ability to design furniture from design brief to prototype, and potentially also end-product.
Students participating at Stockholm Furniture & Light 2019 include: Louis Buchet, Oliver Kanniste, Henri Kaarel Luht, Mihkel Lappmaa, Gisela Osi, Vitali Valtanen, and Lauri Visnapuu.
Their prototypes will be exhibited against the backdrop of Ann Pajuväli’s simple, pared-down set-design, halfway between furniture and seemingly two-dimensional form.
For further information and images, please contact anna-liisa.laarits@artun.ee.
The Department of Product Design has been generously supported by the European Regional Development Fund, and the Architecture Endowment of the Cultural Endowment of Estonia.