In-person

What Is Nordic Design: Sweden

2655 NW Market Street, Seattle, WA 98107

206.789.5707

Welcome to the fourth installment of What is Nordic Design: Sweden! We are delighted to welcome Nina Due, Director, Röhsska, Museum of Design and Craft, Gothenburg, and Sarah Holian, Curator, Frank Lloyd Wright Trust, Chicago, to explore Nordic Design from the Swedish perspective.

Note: all sessions in the What is Nordic Design series will be available on YouTube and MyNordic shortly following the program. To learn more about MyNordic, please click here.

About the Series:

Simplicity, minimalism, and functionality are three pillars that many use to describe “Nordic” Design. But what exactly is Nordic design? In this new series, we will explore and celebrate the influence and evolution of design in each Nordic country (Denmark, Iceland, Finland, Norway, Sweden) and consider a national school of design against the idea of pan-Nordic design. Each session will investigate the history of design in the country under consideration, and it will pose the question: What is “Nordic” design? Design experts from each Nordic country will be paired with a curator of design at a US museum for a stimulating conversation.

Speakers

Nina Due

Nina Due, Director of the Röhsska museum of Design and Craft in Gothenburg, Sweden.
Nina has more than twenty years’ experience of working for museums and cultural institutions including the Victoria and Albert Museum, The British Council, and the Design Museum in London as curator and head of exhibitions before taking over the directorship of the Röhsska museum in 2017.
Bio

Nina Due

Nina Due, Director of the Röhsska museum of Design and Craft in Gothenburg, Sweden.
Nina has more than twenty years’ experience of working for museums and cultural institutions including the Victoria and Albert Museum, The British Council, and the Design Museum in London as curator and head of exhibitions before taking over the directorship of the Röhsska museum in 2017.

Prior to the Röhsska Museum, her curatorial work included thematic exhibitions Designs of the Year and Unexpected Pleasures: The Art and Design of Contemporary Jewellery, and United Micro Kingdoms: A Design Fiction. She has delivered monographic shows on the architect Richard Rogers, fashion designer Hussein Chalayan, and textile artist Anni Albers. Throughout, Nina has worked extensively to create collaborations and prototype new methods between museums, cultural institutions, and their audiences. Notable public programming includes Friday Lates at the V&A and initiating international residency programs both at the Design Museum, London and now at the Röhsska Museum, Gothenburg.

At the Röhsska Museum, Nina led the extensive renovation and reopening of the museum in 2019. She has overseen the rehang and delivery of five permanent exhibitions, from East Asian galleries to the contemporary design and craft collections. Considering design as a lens through which to understand and re-engage with the world that we live in, under her stewardship the Röhsska Museum has organized temporary exhibitions across design, architecture, crafts, and fashion to include Unmaking Democratic Design, Forensic Architecture, Migration – the journey of objects and Nordic Fashion now – knitwear and print.

Röhsska museet: https://rohsska.se/en/about-us/
Sarah Holian

Sarah Holian is the Curator at the Frank Lloyd Wright Trust in Chicago and a Lecturer at DePaul University who specializes in modern architecture and design. She earned graduate degrees in Art History from The University of Texas at Austin and The Graduate Center, City University of New York. Holian also lived for two years in Malmö, Sweden where she developed a strong interest in Nordic design.