Jenny Nordberg

I was labeled as a tricky player early on and have been regarded as tricky throughout my whole career. It was said that I was able to pull out tricks from nowhere. Judith Polgár Tricks From Nowhere is a large scale chess game developed specifically for Sergels Torg in Stockholm by Jenny Nordberg in 2024. … Continue reading Tricks From Nowhere →

The Mental Note candelabras derive from a mental note that simply said: What if this material and technique that so often have played the supporting role in many of my projects for once could act as the main character? These aluminium tubes and their plastic joints have due to their lack of attitude served well … Continue reading Mental Note →

These are two commissioned pieces for the Nordiska Galleriet Malmö store. They were installed when the long time design store and gallery Olsson & Gerthel was incorparated in the Nordiska Galleriet group 2023.

Free Applications is a 3D-printed chair based on a rough model of a chair in 1:10 scale. Free, easy-to-use programmes were used for its design and modelling, allowing mistakes generated by the misinterpretations of AI technology at different stages of production. The search for a quick and flexible process in turn led toward a new … Continue reading Free Applications →

The 2nd edition of the book about the practice of Jenny Nordberg. Published in 2023 by Nilleditions. “Strategies for Moving Freely presents a selection of Swedish designer Jenny Nordberg”s distinctive work. Covering a decade of explorations into new ways of imagining and approaching contemporary design, this revised edition is published on the occasion of her … Continue reading Strategies for Moving Freely 2nd Edition →

LINK TO VIDEO Text by Henriette Noermark “Transport is absolutely crucial to the machinery of global production, but, given that it still makes huge use of fossil fuels, it is also one of the most problematic elements. During the pandemic, we saw what happens when transport does not work. We have become totally dependent on … Continue reading Active Cargo →

Open Infinity’s shape is directly picked up from a container and then reproduced fifty times over. The curve’s predetermined shape makes the design process more effective as many steps can be excluded. The result is a suggestion — ”it could be like this” The 100% scrap-based steel wire is bent into shape in Värnamo, Småland. … Continue reading Open Infinity →

– How do you decide if a smile is true ”One early morning during the covid winter of 2021 I had a rich and vivid dream. I woke up with a clear image of a smiling chair with alluring eyes. I tried to draw it immediately but it was impossible to describe and capture the … Continue reading Positive Enough →

A 2 meter long cup made during Covid 2021 for the Between Objects project. Shown at The Classen Library during Copenhagen Art Week and at QB Gallery in Oslo, Norway.

The Accumulations lamp was born during the exhibition with the same name, Accumulations, shown at Olsson & Gerthel in 2020. “The exhibition Accumulations (September 9-26, 2020) at Olsson & Gerthel is based on a library of rejected elements, which through Nordberg’s disruptions are given new function and potential. In the performative presentation, she joints these … Continue reading Accumulations Lamp →

A set of jewelry done for What Is Gold. A digital vendor and loosely arranged art, craft and design initiative. Independent practitioners and non traditional jewelers are offering artisanal produced items, one-offs and more within jewellery. What Is Gold is the place for rare findings. There are no middle hands and the author of the … Continue reading Office Supply →

Am I a ghost? For several years, Johnny Ståhl has held a position at my studio. His primary task is to send emails, especially to manufacturers and subcontractors of various kinds. The responses he gets are always helpful, quick and polite. Whenever someone wants to talk to Johnny though, he is never there. He hasn’t … Continue reading The Ghost →

Book about the practice of Jenny Nordberg. Published in 2020 by Nilleditions. Buy it here. “Jenny Nordberg is arguably the brightest shining star in contemporary Swedish design. Her experimental and forward looking design practice manages to bring together a series of values that for most designers is very hard to achieve, if not unobtainable – … Continue reading Strategies for moving freely →

In several of her projects, Jenny Nordberg has composed new objects out of discarded or rejected materials – for example in the exhibitions Omkompositioner (Recompositions) at Rian designmuseum (2014), Most Common Element at OBRA (2018) and Possibilities at stockholmmodern (2020). The unwanted materials she works with can, as the British anthropologist Mary Douglas suggests, be … Continue reading Accumulations →

In the beginning of 2020 Jenny Nordberg was commissioned by Vandalorum Art and Design Museum in Värnamo to design their new canteen trays i collaboration with Åry Trays in Nybro, Småland. The trays at Åry usually get their decorative top layer via a printed paper or fabric. Creating a pattern or illustration to be repeated … Continue reading Tray concept for Vandalorum →

The Powder Vases by Jenny Nordberg is a part of the limited edition decorative accessory collection curated by Modern Design Review for Hem. Throughout her practice, Nordberg has turned a critical eye on contemporary conditions of production, adopting an experimental and research-based approach. However, finding manufacturers who are willing to experiment is not an easy … Continue reading Powder Vase →

ÅKER is a site specific public work done in 2019. Åker means field and the large installation refers to the site where the now 110 meter high property is built. The soil at this specific place was unique and used to be one of the most fertile in Europe. The wooden zigzag panels are covered … Continue reading Åker →

Site specific commission for Hallands Konstmsueum (the Art Museum of Halland). Aside from setting the artistic and interior framework, Nordberg also designed all the seating furniture for the new auditorium. The chair collection is based on a short story by the Halmstad-born writer Klara Johanson (1875–1948; pen name Huck Leber) from her book Oskuld och … Continue reading Huck Leber →

For several years, Nordberg lived next to a supermarket with absurdly low prices, and it was this context that served as the starting point of The Baloney Sandwich. The store was always a last resort for groceries, but now and then Nordberg wandered the aisles looking for something edible. Some of the bread had a … Continue reading The Baloney Sandwich →

A loose continuation of Most Common Element, this project further explored the craft of welding. Here, it was accompanied by other industrial techniques, including metal casting, powder coating and vari- ous surface-treatment processes. All components of the different assemblages were metal offcuts and scraps from industries surrounding Nordberg’s studio, which she collected and stored in … Continue reading Possibilities →

In 2017 Hallands Konstmuseum invited Jenny Nordberg to serve as lead creative of a new auditorium, which was to be built as an extension of the museum’s 1930s-era building. Having grown up in this part of Sweden, she developed a concept that was based on the heritage and surroundings of the specific site. Everything from … Continue reading Auditorium, Halland Art Museum →

INGER – Optical Illusions Homage to Inger Ekdahl Inger Ekdahl (1922-2014) was an artist and Swedish pioneer in spontaneous painting during the middle of the 20th century. In many of her later paintings and sculptures she worked with optical illusions and prismatic effects. Ekdahl often worked from home and used, among other things, a vacuum … Continue reading INGER →

This 3D-printer is influenced by the bone healing process that takes place within the body (in vivo). The In Vitro Printer however, runs outside the body – in vitro. Layer by layer, altering different materials, the printer bilds a bone like structure. And just as with bone healing the printer uses no electric power nor … Continue reading In Vitro Printer →

The National Museum in Stockholm opened again at the 12th of October 2018 after being closed for over five years due to a major renovation and restoration. Jenny Nordberg was invited to make a permanent mirror installation for the café and restaurant. The room where the mirror piece is placed used to be a portrait … Continue reading Nationalmuseum Mirror Installation →

Assemblage was originally designed for the restaurant at Nordic Light Hotel in Stockholm that went through a major restoration in 2017/2018 lead by Marcus Bergström. The concept of assemblage were materialised in this lamp as groceries and objects found in the kitchen were stacked in different three-dimensional collages.  Butter together with a bowl, a plate … Continue reading Assemblage →

The project/exhibition Most Common Element took place at Obra, a post artist-run, post-alternative research oriented art gallery located in Malmö, Sweden, between March 23 and April 21, 2018. Jenny Nordberg (Halmstad, 1978) is an industrial designer with an exploratory practice currently concerned with the recovery of processes and material. Her design projects develop through conversation … Continue reading Most Common Element →

Painting Leather is a research based project with its origin in the 18th century fake leather practice often to be found in antique furniture from this decade. Going fake is often a shortcut or a detour to achieve something seemingly unobtainable. The fake leather material produced three hundred years ago was made to avoid the … Continue reading Painting Leather →

Nordberg’s fascination for the ultra-standardised is materialised in the BRICK series. Casted glass bricks with the exact measurements of old traditional bricks are composed into sculptural candle holders. Besides the traditional dimensions of the bricks nothing else is standard – the BRICK series is hand casted in a small Italian glass foundry and patiently assembled … Continue reading BRICK →

The Open series for Minus Tio consists of three sculptural objects for storage. When developing the Open series designer Jenny Nordberg looked for manufacturers who where willing to work with preexisting tools instead of making new ones for these particular objects. This approach was a deliberate strategy to contribute to a more open-source-like mindset within … Continue reading OPEN →

Things my daughter said about objects, interiors, ornament and crime I was asked by Jr-Work-Shop to do something related to kids. Not having ever worked with, by or for children I asked my daughter for some advice, she then became my muse. Her thoughts about furniture, objects and interiors are both grand and unrestricted. The … Continue reading Things my daughter said… →

For KÄLLEMO Jenny Nordberg received Form Award’s “Newcomer of the Year” for this project during Stockholm Furniture Fair 2017. “Jenny Nordberg is one of Swedish craft’s foremost talents and thus anything but a newcomer. With the project Brus for Källemo, she has taken her artistic credo into a new industrial context. Brus is a beautiful … Continue reading Brus →

Is it possible to obtain unique results within industrial production? Jenny Nordberg has examined the issue in the Swedish foundry industry for the past year by working with three founders parallel. The result sought for has been a large scale macro-composite made of several assembled cast metals. During the process, there has been an interesting … Continue reading Macro Composite →

Studio Adapted Industrial Processes – Tin Casting Jenny Nordberg created the Tin Plinth with the cubical geometry of the classical gallery plinth in mind. The material in the plinth however – tin, is maybe less classical. Often working with the tension between the hand made and the machine made Nordberg wanted to explore the production … Continue reading Studio Adapted Industrial Processes →

Often working with the limitations of standardisation Nordberg developed Default Plantage where looks and measurments are based on the conditions of the globalised production industry. Default Plantatage can be seen as a pre phase or perhaps even the end of an era as Nordbergs next project, The Vocabulary of the Un-standardised, takes place in a … Continue reading Default Plantage →

No factories, no transportation, truly local, at your place. At Your Place Production is a performative production concept and service researching if production can be done at the consumers place (as in home, office, institution, gallery etcetera). By doing so, could long distance transportations and factories be avoided? Could this also work in favour of … Continue reading At Your Place Production →

– Rapid handmade furniture WATCH THE PRODUCTION MOVIE Is it possible to make unique handmade furniture really fast? Is speed the contradiction to skills? Can lack of time lead to new methods? Is there an aesthetics of the shortcut? Is speed bad? This project is a continuation of the recent “3 to 5 Seconds – … Continue reading 3 to 5 Minutes →

While working with the project “ 3 to 5 Seconds – Rapid handmade production” in 2014 Jenny Nordberg researched ancient mirror making. The process and outcome was captivating and Nordberg has since then worked with this old method of making mirrors. The process used has it’s origin in the 19th century and is resulting in … Continue reading Mirrors →

– Rapid handmade production WATCH THE PRODUCTION VIDEO WATCH THE PRODUCTION VIDEO PART II 3 to 5 Seconds is like many other of Jenny Nordberg’s projects part of a larger and ongoing work about how we produce and consume today, how we’ve done historically and how we could do it in the future. In the … Continue reading 3 to 5 Seconds →

  HIGH RESOLUTION PICTURES   Text by Jenny Nordberg from the Exhibition at Falkenberg Museum >>>   ABOUT THE EXHIBITION What does today’s patterns of consumption look like in relation to history and to the future? In the exhibition Recompositions at Falkenberg Museum industrial designer Jenny Nordberg works with rejected furniture from a reversed value … Continue reading Omkompositioner →

Nearly all the accessories we can buy at various low price stores are made in China. A Chinese factory worker earns (after the 13-percent increase in 2012) between eight and nine Swedish krona per hour, which corresponds to today’s value of €1. The material in the €1 Bracelet is solid bronze. If you were to … Continue reading €1 Bracelet →

Human Shelf is a collaboration with industrial designer Milan Kosovic. The project was done in the early summer of 2013 for the Folkets Hamn (“People’s Marina”) at the H+ area in Helsingborg. Human Shelf is part of a large-scale family of outdoor furniture and offers the possibility to hang out for many at the same … Continue reading Human Shelf →

WATCH SLIDE SHOW The Blocket Series 2005-2011 shows some of the my over 2 000 pictures collected from the online buy and sell market Blocket. During a six year period I frequently visited this online market. My fascination of Blocket is simple – it’s the largest uncensored window into the homes of al types of … Continue reading The Blocket Series 2005-2011 →

Projects done before co-funding and running Apokalyps Labotek 2008-2013.