Stockholm Furniture Fair, 2020

In dialogue with Swedish companies in the furniture industry, we found a common interest in questioning these beauty standards within the industry and reveal what is being wasted because of them. We want to open up the question of what makes us perceive furniture to be attractive and bring about the ecological and economical benefits with decreased usage of raw material.

What if we actually wouldn’t mind the dot?

Design of stand and collaboration: Mathilda Dahlquist

Concept: Mathilda Dahlquist, Agnes Asker, Camilla Guzmán

Logo design: Agnes Asker

Press

Borås Tidning See as pictures

EFG

Högskolan för Design och Konsthantverk See as picture

Linnaeus University

Pressmeddelande SVE

Mind the dot

A project in collaboration with Swedese, OFFECCT, Lammhults, EFG, SAVO, Karl Andersson & Söner and Källemo. Originally, Mind the dot was developed together with Camilla Guzman and Agnes Asker in a collaboration with Swedese, autumn 2018. It was further developed by Mathilda in the fall of 2019, which led to the bigger collaboration with more companies, culminating in the exhibition at the Furniture Fair in February 2020.

Is it reasonable that material is being discarded because of our beauty ideals? How can we learn to value the natural instead of rejecting it?

Ugly fruits, non-normative bodies, and flaws are terms coming from mindsets. From our perception of what is normal. Because of them, the leather in this stand would never have been used.

In the furniture industry, a great amount of leather is being wasted, sometimes up to 50%. Some of the reasons are smaller holes decreasing the quality, but more common are scars, insect bites or other marks that the cow gets during its lifetime. These are fully natural marks that don’t have to have an impact on the quality - still it is being discarded. All because of constructed standards of what is desirable.