As part of the exhibition and project the Age of. funded by Kulturbryggan and exhibited during Stockholm Design week 2020, a limited edition printed publication is launched. The book contains texts and images by eight design studios who have participated in The Age of Entanglements,  a two-year long speculative design project, focusing on the planet of Mars as a projection plane for critique and speculation. The aim with the publication is to document the thorough research processes that each design studio undertook during the project and ultimately to create spaces for discussion and debate about what it means being human on Earth today.

The designers are: Agi Haines & Nicholas Tamás (UK/US), Cathrine Disney (UK), Fred Erik & Pleun van Dijk (BE/NL), Nonhuman Nonsense (SE), Mariah Wright (US), Pleoforma, Oscar Salguero & Zack Saunders (US), Thomas Pausz (FR), Wang & Söderström (SE).

The curatorial text is written by Petra Lilja and the graphic design and hand-made production is executed by Simon Nilsson and Gustaf Montelius.

The Age of. Launch Party: Tuesday 4th of February, 19:00-21:00, Volvo Studio, Västra Trädgårdsgatan 8, 111 47 Stockholm

The Age of. takes the audience on a journey from present day issues of climate change to a multi-planetary future. In the Age of Humans, we view ourselves separate from nature, providing us with a false sense of justification to ignorantly exploit nature.

 The exhibition unfolds in The Age of Consciousness, a near future vision in pursuit of a new design landscape, where nurture nature, nature made and ecological models underpins the ethos of a conscious, symbiotic ecology. Design Studios: Granby Workshop (UK), Cecilia Xinyu Zhang (CH), Kajsa Melchior (SE), OS OOS (NL/CAN), Bolt Threads & Stella McCartney (UK), Seed Health (US), Convivial Project (FR/DE)

 The Age of Entanglements ask: Is it easier for us humans to imagine life on Mars than to take care of life on Earth? What if focus would shift from exploiting space, just as we have exploited Earth, by looking beyond human centered interests? Design Studios: Agi Haines & Nicholas Tamás (UK/US), Cathrine Disney (UK), Fred Erik & Pleun van Dijk (BE/NL), Nonhuman Nonsense (SE), Mariah Wright (US), Pleoforma, Oscar Salguero & Zack Saunders (US), Thomas Pausz (FR), Wang & Söderström (SE).

Funded by Kulturbryggan and Volvo

Panel Talk & Mingle ‘Designing for a Symbiotic Revolution - Space Corals, Mother Cultures and Extremophiles’: Wednesday 5th  of February, Bio Capitol, Salon 1, Sankt Eriksgatan 82, 113 62 Stockholm.

Welcome to a discussion on “Designing for a Symbiotic Revolution” in which 4 design studios will present their work as part of the exhibition “The Age of”, on display at Volvo Studio during Stockholm Design Week.

For this exhibition, international design studios have been working with the planet of Mars as a projection plane for critique and speculation, questioning: Is it easier to imagine life on Mars than to take care of life on Earth?

The four design studios will present speculative scenarios in which they are imagining what would happen if focus would shift from exploiting space, just as we have exploited Earth, to develop more sustainable lifestyles in mutualistic symbiosis with other living organisms?

Asking what can be learnt, or perhaps unlearnt, by imagining and designing for a multi-species life on Mars.

"Designing for a Symbiotic Revolution - Space Corals, Mother Cultures and Extremophiles" with Wang & Söderström (SE), Studio Pleoforma/Oscar Salguero & Zack Saunders (US), Thomas Pausz (FR) and Mariah Wright (US).
The Q&A will be moderated by curators Petra Lilja & Jenny Lee.

Hosted by the French Institute, Stockholm

Guided Tour & Performance ‘Exploring Alternative Systems: An upside-down Ecology, Mutualism and Personhood for Mars’: Thursday 6th of February, 16:00 - 17:30, Volvo Studio, Jussi Björlings allé 5, 111 47 Stockholm

Three design studios Fred Erik (BE) & Pleun Van Dijk (NL), Nonhuman Nonsense (SE) and Cathrine Disney (UK) present their work for The Age of. exhibition including a performance. Followed by a session of Q&A, moderated by the curators Petra Lilja & Jenny Lee.

Designer Cathrine Disney’s performance The End of the World, also takes place 3rd-9th of February, Mon-Fri 10-18 and Sat-Sun 11-16, Volvo Studio.

The Age of. at Stockholm Design Week 2020!

The Age of. takes the audience on a journey from present day issues of climate change to a multi-planetary future. In the Age of Humans, we view ourselves separate from nature, providing us with a false sense of justification to ignorantly exploit nature.

 The exhibition unfolds in The Age of Consciousness, a near future vision in pursuit of a new design landscape, where nurture nature, nature made and ecological models underpins the ethos of a conscious, symbiotic ecology. Design Studios: Granby Workshop (UK), Cecilia Xinyu Zhang (CH), Kajsa Melchior (SE), OS OOS (NL/CAN), Bolt Threads & Stella McCartney (UK), Seed Health (US), Convivial Project (FR/DE)

 The Age of Entanglements ask: Is it easier for us humans to imagine life on Mars than to take care of life on Earth? What if focus would shift from exploiting space, just as we have exploited Earth, by looking beyond human centered interests? Design Studios: Agi Haines & Nicholas Tamás (UK/US), Cathrine Disney (UK), Fred Erik & Pleun van Dijk (BE/NL), Nonhuman Nonsense (SE), Mariah Wright (US), Pleoforma, Oscar Salguero & Zack Saunders (US), Thomas Pausz (FR), Wang & Söderström (SE).

Curated and project managed by Petra Lilja by Jenny Lee, from non:agency.

Exhibition design by Tove Alderin Studio.

Funded by Kulturbryggan

As part of the program for the speculative design exhibition The Age of...? we arranged workshops with kids on the theme of space and Mars. Funding from Sparbanksstiftelsen Skåne & Swedbank made it possible to engage återSKAPA to run four workshops for over 50 kids from Grade 4.

återSKAPA is a creative reuse, design, and education center working with playful design processes to expand subject knowledge, increase environmental awareness and stimulate creativity, initiative and ingenuity. återSKAPA don’t see waste material as garbage, but treat it as an opportunity for creation, communication and education.

Between September 10-12th, 2019, återSKAPA brought their mobile material bank, full to the rafters of discarded industrial waste to Form/Design Center where the workshops where held. Inspired by design studio Wang & Söderström’s contribution in the exhibition, the workshops started by talking about extremophiles (= bacteria living under extreme conditions) and that NASA has found four different variants that could survive on Mars. The first one can handle radioactivity, the second one can live in rock, the third one lives on only carbon dioxide and hydrogen and the fourth one lives in both super hot and super cold water. With inspiration from återSKAPA’s DIY magnifications of bacteria in flat plastic lab bowls, the children created their own life forms on Mars. The kids agreed on that living on Mars will be difficult and that it would be smarter to save and share Earth's resources instead and try to live better with nature. Thank you for your thoughts and inspiration, it gives us hope for a bright future!

Happy to be invited to talk at the Chart Art & Design in Copenhagen, Denmark this year as well! Together with curator Johan Deurell from the design museum Röhsska in Gothenburg, Sweden and Suvi Saloniemi, chief curator of Design Museum, Helsinki, Finland we discussed around the title: Reflecting and Learning. The talk was greatly moderated by Johanna Agerman Ross, curator at V&A, London and founder as well as director of the design journal Disegno.

I’m excited to announce that I will be speaking at The Conference, representing non:agency and the project The Age of Entanglement that I run together with Jenny Lee.

The Conference is an international happening taking place in Malmö, AUG 27-28, 2019

Link to The Conference

The Age of…? is the first of two exhibitions in the project The Age of Entanglements and shows the design processes where designers explore different future scenarios through speculative design.

Opening at Form/Design Center, Malmö August 27th, 17-20.

The Age of Entanglements is a two-year long project where 8 international design studios are working with the planet of Mars as a projection plane for critique and speculation to create spaces for discussion and debate about what it means being human on Earth today.

Curated by Petra Lilja and project managed by Jenny Lee, from non:agency

Link to more information about the designers and the exhibition.

Funded by Kulturbryggan

non:agency is a platform founded by Petra Lilja (SE) and Jenny Lee (UK) to run the exhibition project The Age of, funded by Kulturbryggan during 2018-2020.

In January 2019 I started my PhD studies at the University of Arts, Crafts and Design (Konstfack) and the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) in Stockholm. The project title is Cultivating Caring Coexistence – designing anthropo-de-centric futures and will explore multispecies-inclusive narratives and strategies for engaging and empowering scales of actors and knowledges otherwise unaddressed.

Link to research profile

As one of 10 selected designers I've been "matched" with a material researcher as part of the project Material Depot. The collaboration with researchers at Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences working with plant and protein based plastics is starting in February and the results of the process will be exhibited during Dutch Design Week in Eindhoven, October 2018. Titel of the exhibition: What Matter/s

Inspiration for new materials, new colors, new meetings, new work, new beginnings of 2018.

#assemblage #series #petraliljadesign #design #conceptual #material #political

A new project is now taking the 1+1+1 collective to Sierra Leone, where we will be collaborating with local crafts people. We will be focusing on a particular type of bamboo for weaving of baskets from the Brama Town area, pottery and weaving with recycled yarn. Stay tuned!

A hectic and wonderful week in London is over. Here in nice company of Milan Kosovic, that we shared the space with. Good bye for now London, hope to see you again next year! Press coverage links:
-  How design creatives in Skane are challenging Stockholm and the norms of Swedish design by CITY.A.M
- 10 emerging designers to watch from the London Design Festival 2017 by Evening Standard
- London Design Fair 2017: Curating the Curators by Archiproducts
- Our 50+ Favorite Finds From the 2017 London Design Festival by Sight Unseen

REPHRASALS (ENG) / OMFORMULERA (SE) / PARAFRAASI (FI)  is an experimental design project which explores what new possibilities and expressions can be found through a method of associations and chance. Read more about the project and visit the exhibition or have a look October 21 to November 26 at Form/Design Center.

Super Talk with Form/Design Centers Terese Alstin, repost @glenbaghurst. Here I´m talking about design in the South of Sweden together with other stand neighbours at the Swedish paviljong during the London design fair. 

Today we selected three representative design objects from Sweden and sent off a description to Aalto+Aalto design studio in Finland. Without revealing which ones it is, it is based on these descriptions, they have to designed new items, some kind of reinterpretations or paraphrases on the original.

Petra Lilja Design Studio exhibited at the Swedish Pavilion during London Design Fair, The Old Truman Brewery in Shoreditch, September 21st-24th. A big thanks to everybody who stopped by, the great press coverage and to my wonderful Swedish colleagues.

Hope to see you all at Form Design Center on Saturday for a mingle with the Swedish designers that will take part at the London Design Fair! The program will start with a movie screening at 14, following a mingle from 14.30 untill 15.00. The event is free!

For more information click here!