Community anno 2019 - The Biennale for Craft & Design

The Biennale of Danske Kunsthåndværkere & Designere - the Association of Craft and Design - is a major exhibition for craft in Denmark with a prestigious prize.

Following an open call for ideas for works on a theme of Community, eighteen were chosen for the exhibition at Nordatlantens Brygge in Copenhagen - an impressive 18th-century, brick warehouse at the centre of the inner harbour. The Biennale is in a gallery space on the attic floor with good light from windows on both sides so low, strong natural light, forms shadows across the space, as the sun moves round the building, but that light emphasises the confident use of deep colour and strong element of texture in many of the works.

Some of these works are about family - about the gift of food at the table or about memories of lost loved ones - and there is a strong sense of exploring - exploring through play and exploring through senses not always associated with design - specifically taste as in flavour - as well as the obvious senses that mean we can appreciate carefully designed shapes or the choice of a colour in beautiful and well-made object.

These are exceptional and unique works, formed, in large part, from common and everyday materials but, primarily, they are works that express individual imagination so are about communicating ideas … in some cases complex ideas. Shape and form and colour, choice of material and even technique of crafting those materials are all used as a way to communicates and become as valid as language and spoken words …. what Pernille Stockmarr identifies in the catalogue as "archetypal forms that make up a common primeval source of inspiration."

Several of the projects were produced together with other artists and the biennale is clearly an opportunity to share experiences and increase debate and discussion …. more than appropriate given the theme for the exhibition of Community.

“For the Biennale for Craft & Design 2019 we ask you to focus your talent on Community and to consider how you can create objects, ideas and meanings with the potential to give rise to new communities - imagined or actual - that may save our world, our planet. Objects, physical and virtual, for worship, for action, for consolation, for contemplation, for survival …”