The Swedish jury for Elle Deco’s seventh annual EDIDA/ELLE Deco International Design Awards has presented its choice: Kosta Boda designer Åsa Jungnelius is 2008 Designer of the Year.
Lotta Lewenhaupt, editor-in-chief of Swedish Elle Interiör, writes:
“Suggestive is a word that often comes up when describing Åsa Jungnelius’s works. With good reason: thought-provoking and beguiling, most everything Åsa does sends out double signals. And this is often extremely intentional; she likes to challenge and question conventions such as what is true or false, ugly or attractive. As always, the answer is in the eye of the beholder. For example, Åsa has her own way of commenting on phenomena such as consumerism and shopping, expressed even before she was hired at Kosta Boda in the form of a giant glass lipstick with obvious references to brand-name tubes. Once at Kosta Boda she continued with her Make Up series, which includes oversized bottles of nail polish and a serving dish with a relief pattern very reminiscent of the oft-imitated logo of a certain purse brand.
“Just like their creator, everything that Åsa makes is clear and confident. She is consistent; she follows her own path and has done so since she left school at 17 to become an apprentice glassblower at the National School of Glass in Orrefors. The addictive, intoxicating effect of glass as a material becomes evident when we see that Åsa has also worked in blowing rooms in the UK, Italy, Kenya and the United States (Pilchuck) over the years. In 2004 she earned a degree from the Ceramics & Glass department of the University College of Arts, Crafts and Design in Stockholm. Her degree exhibition featured, among other things, a pair of transparent glass stiletto shoes and a crystal chandelier, which later appeared in Liljevalch’s Formbart exhibition in 2005, along with a pair of candlesticks that looked like melted wax. The latter is now a part of her Mysstake series at Kosta Boda.”
Åsa received the award at the Elle Interiör design gala in Stockholm on 3 February 2009, and the complete statement of the jury will be published in the February issue of Elle Interiör, which will be released in connection with the Furniture Fair in Stockholm.
