Konstfack Graduates Of 2022 Reveal The Inspiration Behind Their Impressive Textile Works
Image Courtesy of Lynn Stenvall
The degree show opens 7 May, featuring work that explores themes of nature, memories and family.
At Sweden’s largest university specializing in art, craft and design, you can develop into and inhabit those obvious roles that stem from our programmes – artist, designer, interior architect, graphic designer, illustrator, teacher as well as a craftsperson in a range of materials – such as a jewellery designer.
And of course there are a number of paths to take within the design field, from product and furniture design to designing services.
But our alumni also include actors, directors, game designers, fashion designers, project managers and supervisors.
A degree from Konstfack is a creative, academic, solid foundation on which you can stand, dig deeper into and develop from.
An education which allows you to participate in contemporary social debate by developing attitudes, environments, products and services in private as well as public spaces.
With the visual identity for the Degree Exhibition 2022, we hope to create a space to heal, even if just for a short while —especially when many of us are still battling the consequences of a long pandemic and others are bravely resisting the invasion of their home in Ukraine. As we witness the madness of colonization, we have used this visual identity to work with the opposite method; successful graphic design happens when the mind is free rather than colonized, when it can heal and expand.
The identity is a symphony of light rays creating a warm space of energy for the students to shine through, and for the rest of us to reorient — with the mind and with the heart. It is also designed to high standards of sustainability: all indoor signage and printed materials are fully recyclable with no plastic use, and we have carefully calculated production quantities to avoid waste, without compromising on the graphic expression. We are proud of this identity that creates a space at Konstfack for freedom and reorientation, celebrating the transformative power of artistic expression.
“When conflict and violence cast their shadow over the world, every artistic expression is inherently an element of resistance to authoritarianism, war and oppression. Arts, crafts, design, visual arts and sloyd education manifest freedom of expression by permitting fantasy, expressing emotions and ideas and creating dialogue. This is fundamental in a world in which the number of democratic nations is decreasing. It is with pride and respect for artistic freedom that Konstfack throws its doors open and exhibits the works of 188 degree students – our contribution to the open society of which we are a part. Here, the separate parts come together to create a whole; a rainbow that spans issues and subjects at all stages of life. Invention, beauty, criticism, dystopias, consolation, contemplation, deep insights and exuberant humour nourish our lives and the peace and freedom we so fervently cherish.” Maria Lantz, Konstfack’s Vice Chancellor
As Micael de Leeuw said about his work “Rapid movements turn into drawings, new layers — a cycle of adding and subtracting. Analog and digital preparations that circulates until the unpredictable feeling arises, which tells me that it is time for the last physical image translation, in the tufted material — soft paintings made of wool, mohair and tencel is what I have been working with during my last time at Konstfack in parallel with my essay which is about the process of creation and the relationship between the self and creation. (which becomes personified, a we, a you and I) To create, to want to linger in a kind of flow, a postponement, and then, creation as consumption, all that must inexorably end, which can not be extended forever, the separation always comes, often before it is discovered. we become me, and the sorrow that comes with it.”
Whereas Lyn Stenval commented about the theme of ‘Do Not Feed The Pigeons’ which inspired her work,
Do Not Feed the Pigeons
It’s about obstacles
That exclude
That bar the way
And rectify behaviours
It’s about the pests
About the unwanted
How they are hindered
How their presence is constructed away
It’s about the city
And what is allowed to be seen
and who should be hidden
It’s about pigeons
It’s about people
