This year’s edition of the Ukurant exhibition at 3 Days of Design has taken over a carpentry workshop and features lamps made from egg yolks and a table “decorated with fire”.
Located at the festival’s Refshaleøen Hub, the Ukurant showcase – held by young designers, for young designers – has turned Copenhagen’s Barlby Carlsson woodwork factory into a temporary exhibition space.
Among planks of wood and industrial machinery, Ukurant’s organisers showed pieces by 18 emerging designers.
These were chosen from 200 applications by designers who have graduated within the past six years, from countries ranging from Denmark to Argentina and Canada.
“We curate the exhibition based on experimental character and finished craft,” Ukurant co-founder Laerke Ryom told Dezeen.
“We really want them to give us their perspective on Ukurant and also see what young designers are interested in and focused on right now.”
Among the pieces on show was Paperwork by Danish design duo Frederik Gustav. The sculptural lighting design comprises an artificial light source, suspended from parallel tensed threads that are grounded by small steel weights.
“The weights are calculated so that the tension of the strings is right and everything was installed here, which takes about two days,” Ryom said.
“The [designers] came as soon as we entered the space and began to put it up, so it’s really site-specific.”
A smaller but no less eye-catching piece is Polish designer Adam Bialek’s Our Beloved and Sacred Sun, a collection of lamps made from a biomaterial that mixes egg yolks with different biopolymers.
The organically shaped lighting designs are etched with sun-shaped patterns, designed to reference sun worship and ancient rituals. The designer developed the biomaterial himself and is continuing to experiment with different formulations and applications.
The carpentry company that owns the Barlby Carlsson factory used 3 Days of Design as an opportunity to install their work around the city, leaving the workshop space to the Ukurant exhibition.
Displaying the designs in this industrial space was a way of telling the stories behind the design, Ryom said.
“We’re just so happy to be here in the workshop, where we’re able to indicate the story of all the pieces coming to life because all of them are made by the designers themselves,” Ryom added.
“They are not in production and so we’re also trying to tell the story of all the craft and skill that goes into each piece. I think that is very special and something that really comes together here.”
Many of the works on show, like the products normally made in the workshop, were constructed from wood. They include Det er ikke bejdse, det brændt – which translates as It’s not stained, it’s burnt – a wooden table by designer Anne Skaarup Jaedicke.
Jaedicke described the design as being “decorated by fire” and “a pedestal to your favourite thing, a side table, a table for people who somehow suddenly find themselves sitting on the floor”.
Its raised pattern was created by burning the pine wood, which is held together by aluminium spikes.
Ukurant is about showing the value of community according to Ryom, who like her co-founders Josefine Krabbe Munck, Kamma Rosa Schytte and Kasper Kyster is a recent graduate.
“It’s about seeing that as a collective, you have a stronger voice,” Ryom said.
“You can exhibit your work by yourself and I also love when people do that. But it’s about seeing that there is a value in doing something together – I feel that’s kind of special.”
Looking at all the pieces taken together was also what informed the exhibition design by Schytte and Liv Marie Rømer.
“For the exhibition design for this year, the designers thought a lot about how you have a chair that is really expressive and more sculptural, and then you have something that is more recognisable,” Ryom said.
“There are stories that are told when they stand together and that is something that we are really trying to express, that the pieces also heighten each other.”
This is the third edition of Ukurant at 3 Days of Design, which is celebrating its tenth anniversary. Other exhibitions and projects on show as part of the festival include design duo GamFratesi’s first speaker and a sofa that is “designed for repair” by Danish brand Takt.
The photography is by Peter Vinther.
Ukurant is on show from 7 to 10 June 2023 as part of 3 Days of Design. Follow the live coverage on Dezeen live: 3 Days of Design in Copenhagen. See Dezeen Events Guide for information about the event, plus a list of other architecture and design events taking place around the world.
