Centrets projekter og relevante netværk

Annika Skaarup Larsen, asl@designmuseum.dk, annla@sdu.dk

SDU and Designmuseum Danmark,

Ny Carlsberg PhD fellowship

In the decades following World War II, Danish weavers, textile printers, artists and architects began collaborating with textile companies in the development of designed interior textiles. Focusing on the themes of gender, production, and materiality, this project traces the shift from artisanal, workshop-based production to industrial mass production, and explores how the new role of the industrial textile designer was defined, performed, and negotiated during the transition.

Mia Elisabeth Jensen, m.elisabeth@hotmail.com

Danish museums' mediation of material through exhibitions

MA-thesis in Design Studies, SDU 2024

This thesis examines how Danish museums disseminate materials through their exhibitions. The main research question explores what relevance materials have had in exhibition at museums though the history, and how this can relate to a modern perspective on sustainability. It discusses which possibilities and challenges that can occur through dissemination of materials at museums. Cases are exhibitions at the Textile Museum, Trapholt Museum of Art and Design, CLAY Ceramic Museum Danmark and Design Museum Denmark.

Grant from Augustinus Foundation for the joint project:

Made in Denmark. Production history as cultural heritage and sustainable literacy (2026-2029)

Museum Sydøstdanmark, Museum Midtjylland, Museum Kolding, CLAY Keramikmuseum Danmark and SDU. Project leader, Anders V. Munch, SDU, avm@sdu.dk

The automatization and outsourcing of Danish industrial manufacture in the second half of the 20th century have left citizens with very little knowledge of production. This lack also weakens the insight in products, material qualities and maintenance, and makes it difficult to expect responsible consumer behaviour. Denmark is an extreme case, both of outsourcing and overconsumption. While many factories have closed and left no traces of production, design museums contain collections documenting manufacturers in textiles, metalware, and ceramics, which make us able to track developments in production conditions and changes in product quality, usability, and durability. The team will investigate the Danish cases of Dranella Fashion, Kähler Ceramics, Hans Hansen Silver ans Royal Copenhagen. Our project is urgent in collecting knowledge of production from older generations and share it to younger. 

Susanne Bruhn, sbruhn@sdu.dk

Between Art and Mass Production

Axel Salto and the Royal Copenhagen Porcelain Manufactory
SDU and CLAY Museum of Ceramic Art, Ny Carlsberg PhD fellowship

This research project examines the artist’s role and Salto’s collaboration with the company during the 1950s. The project explores the media discourse and the visual mediations of this partnership in connection with international design exhibitions such as Triennale di Milano, Design in Scandinavia, 1954-57, and The Arts of Denmark. Viking to Modern, 1960-61.
Keywords: Danish Modern, design exhibition, mediation, design cultur

Giovanni Acerbis, gioac@sdu.dk

The Role of Kitchens
Reaching Sustainability through Materiality

SDU PhD project

By combining New Materialist theories, literature on product sustainability and craft studies the project explores consumption of kitchens in relations to issues of sustainability. By investigating how kitchens actively shape and develop interactions with users, the project frames materiality as a possible catalyst for more sustainable kitchen-user interactions.


Joachim Allouche, jallo@sdu.dk

Danish Glass after 1950

SDU and Museum of Southeast Denmark, Ny Carlsberg PhD fellowship 

In the second half of the 20th century, Danish glass design got its own identity; this happened as a reaction to foreign competition that employed an increasingly sophisticated production apparatus capable of making machine-made glass. The design style, which empathized glass as a manifestation of craft and visual designers while still being affordable, would remain until the 21st century when the industry got hit by a crisis, which resulted in the foreclosure of the last Danish glasswork.

The project, Danish Glass after 1950, aims to explore how Danish glass design and industry mutually affect each other and how this interaction impacted the industry's development and final demise in 2008.

Anna Freund, alfreundhj@gmail.com, & Karoline F. B. Schou, karolineschou@gmail.com

The Meaningful Connection between the History of Danish Design and Repressed Cultural Heritage
A Design Historical Investigation of the Production of Plates at the Royal Porcelain Factory, with a Focus on the Period 1960-1979

SDU MA-thesis in collaboration with CLAY Ceramic Museum, 2023

The history of plate production at the Royal Porcelain Factory, 1960-1979, is examined through various dimensions of the production process, including the cultural context in which the plates emerged and operated, and how this culture of production changed in response to globalization and modernization. Furthermore, the impact of these changes on female workers involved in plate production and the implications it had for the production process in 1972/73 is explored. Finally, the thesis explores how the production history of plates from the Royal Porcelain Factory can be integrated into a relevant service product for CLAY Ceramic Museum, specifically an interactive workshop engaging technical high school students. 

Nordisk Forum for Designhistorie

Kristian Roland Larsen, krlar@trapholt.dk

Mediation and Materiality in Wegner's Furniture Design

SDU and Trapholt Museum of Art and Design, New Carlsberg Postdoctoral Fellowship

The project will illuminate the relations between entrepreneurship, mediation, and (new)materialism within the practice of Danish furniture designer Hans J. Wegner (1914-2007). This approach aims not only to deepen insights into a central figure of the golden age of Danish furniture design but also to uncover the values that shaped Wegner’s practice. The project will explore Wegners roles related to quality assurance, visual mediation methods, and his relationship with materials. The research will culminate in a major exhibition on Wegner at Trapholt in 2027.