TAKEAWAY – Biennale for Craft & Design

5 June – 24 October

The exhibition opened on 4 June 2021 with the awarding of Biennale Prize 2021 and the presentation of the Biennale catalogue.

The Biennale for craft & design 2021 was curated by a professional jury with the following members:

Anni Nørskov Mørch, curator, Museum Kolding
Trude Gomnæs Ugelstad, artistic director, Sørlandets Kunstmuseum (Sørlandet Art Museum) (NO)
Love Jönsson, museum director, Rian Designmuseum (SE)
Carl Emil Jacobsen, industrial designer and artist
Maria Sparre-Petersen, glass designer, teaching associate professor, Royal Danish Academy, MFA, PhD

Among 207 submissions, the jury selected 25 projects for the exhibition. On the opening day, the award committee revealed which of the professional designers or makers had been chosen to receive the Biennale Award 2021 of DKK 100,000, donated by the private foundation Grosserer L.F. Foghts Fond.

The recipient of this years Biennale Award was Helle Vibeke Jensen, ‘I’ll take it all with me!’

The exhibition was created by exhibition curator Anni Nørskov Mørch of Museum Kolding and exhibition designer Louise Witthöft in collaboration with the exhibitors, the Danish Crafts & Design Association and Museum Kolding. Shown in the Ruin Hall at Royal Danish Collection Koldinghus .

Theme: TAKEAWAY

All the exhibitors address this year’s theme, ’TAKEAWAY, presenting pieces that respond to the question, What is your takeaway, what do you carry forward in your practice as a designer or maker? And what do you choose to scrap?

The theme ‘TAKEAWAY – what do you carry forward?’ was inspired by the global Coronavirus crisis, where one aspect of the common experience was that community and sustainability turned from abstract concepts to concrete choices, and our mutual interdependency found new manifestations, as concert experiences turned into TV-transmitted sing-along events, art exhibitions turned into webinars, crafts became breathing spaces, artists’ and makers’ patchwork economy became widely known, designers’ ability to think inside the box became obvious, and local restaurants survived by rapidly switching to takeaway .

During the lockdown of Denmark in spring 2020, time-consuming craft disciplines and cultural communities experienced a renaissance, and there is currently a momentum for underscoring the value of contemporary crafts and design. The crisis led many to reflect on how we spend our time and resources and offered an opportunity to reflect on what is worth carrying forward into the future.

The Biennale 2021 turns its gaze to a new, post-Covid reality, where traditional knowledge and techniques fuse with new technology and communication. With the Biennale 2021 we aim to explore how makers and designers can give shape to the expected ‘new normal’. What handed-down resources, knowledge and methods will makers and designers carry forward into their future practices? Have a new understanding and new communities emerged as a positive takeaway from the crisis? And has the crisis inspired designers and makers to scrap some things for good?

Exhibitors

The 25 exhibitors include newcomers and established names, makers and designers, familiar Biennale names and new talents within the fields of ceramics, clothing, glass, video, jewellery, textile, lamps and conceptual installations:

Frederik Gustav: Gustav Dupont and Frederik Weber
Top & Berg: Anne Tophøj and Turi Heisselberg Pedersen
Justyna Poplawska
Anette Leegaard Fuhlendorff
Ane Fabricius Christiansen
Lisbet Friis
Liv Marie Rømer
Helle Vibeke Jensen
Mette Colberg
Marie-Louise Kristensen
Mette Schelde
Kaori Juzu
Helen Clara Hemsley
Bitten Hegelund
Anne Fabricius Møller
Martine Myrup
Marlene Klok Mikkelsen
Anne Damgaard
Stine Bidstrup
Helle Rude Trolle
Mary-Ann Hansen
Bente Skjøttgaard
Birgitte Christens
Karen-Lisbeth Rasmussen
Dorte Østergaard Jakobsen

Acknowledgements

The Biennale for Craft & Design 2021 is supported by the following foundations:

Lemvigh-Müller Fonden
Martha og Paul Kerrn-Jespersen Fonden
Danmarks Nationalbank’s Anniversary Foundation
Danish Arts Foundation
Toyota Foundation
Beckett Fonden
Aage og Johanne Louis-Hansens Fond
Knud Højgaards Fond
New Carlsberg Foundation
Grosserer L.F. Foghts Fond
Embassy of Sweden

History

The Biennale was initiated by the Danish Crafts & Design Association in 1995 and has been held regularly since then, with varying partners and venues. This secures a flexible and up-to-date context for professional crafts and design. The Biennale is an open-call exhibition and competition that all professional practitioners with a connection to Denmark, incl. the Faroe Isles and Greenland, can apply to take part in. The Biennale thus serves as a setting for new talents as well as established names, which is a great source of synergy among the participants. The Biennale last exhibited at Koldinghus ten years ago, in 2011.