Ilkka Suppanen och Mattias Hultgren – scholarship recipents 2023
Designer Ilkka Suppanen is the 2023 recipient of the Ulrica Hydman Vallien Foundation scholarship: SEK 90,000 and an invitation to create experimental works in the Orrefors Kosta Boda hotshop.
Jury’s statement Ilkka Suppanen uses an innovative approach to successfully safeguard and develop Scandinavian design culture. His de[1]mand for function always incorporates an aesthetic dimension. His refined artistic simplicity contains a social context that is indicative of empathy and awareness of a need for beauty and to conserve the earth’s limited resources.
The foundation also supports the National School of Glass in training glassblowers and glass artists by presenting Mattias Hultgren with a scholarship of SEK 10,000.
The jury comprises the board of directors of the Ulrica Hydman Vallien Foundation Hampus Vallien for the Vallien family Lina Sjöquist for the Robert Weil Family Foundation Maria Lomholt for Orrefors Kosta Boda and Hedvig Hedqvist, journalist and design writer.
The scholarships are to be presented by board chair Hampus Vallien on Monday, February 5 at 5:00 pm at Galleri Glas, Nybro[1]gatan 34 in Stockholm. Ulrica Hydman Vallien Foundation. The gallery is currently showing 2021 scholarship recipient Simon Klenell’s collection Ad Libitum – the result of his experiments at the Orrefors Kosta Boda hotshop.
Ilkka Suppanen (b. 1968) is an architect and designer. He studied at the Technical University of Helsinki and the University of Arts and Design (Aalto University) in Helsinki, and completed his studies at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam in 1992. He founded internationally acclaimed group Snowcrash in 1997, which experimented with various materials and adaptations to computerized activities. Suppanen’s designs are represented at MoMA, New York; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Cologne; and Nationalmuseum, Stockholm.
Mattias Hultgren (b. 1991) completed a three-year education at The National School of Glass in 2023.
Masayoshi Oya and Elvira Anekjaer – 2022 scholarship recipients
The designer ceramicist Masayoshi Oya is the 2022 recipient of the Ulrica Hydman Valliens foundation’s scholarship: SEK 90,000 and an invitation to make your own experiments in the cabin at Orrefors Kosta Boda.
The foundation also encourages the Riksglassskolan’s training of glassblowers and glass artists by making Elvira Anekjaer the recipient of a scholarship of SEK 10,000.
The scholarships are awarded by the foundation’s chairman Hampus Vallien in connection with the opening of the exhibition “The Importance of Water”; a glass installation by 2020 scholar Sissi Westerberg, at Svenskt Tenn at 18.30 on 19 September.
Masayoshi Oya has worked with clay since childhood. A television program about The Cardigans made him curious about Sweden, attracted him to Capellagården. Japanese calligraphy allows for personal expression and, overwhelmed by Swedish folk costumes, he has practiced in squares, stripes and colors to find his own style, which he develops with poetic strength in shapes and colors. With a three-dimensional dialogue, he unites traditional influences from the East and the West, making them contemporary and cross-border. The heritage from generations of genuine and virtuosic craft traditions is cultivated to artistic dimensions, which now in the tradition of Ulrica Hydman Vallien, gives the glass a new potential.
Ulrica Hydman Vallien (1938–2018) was one of the country’s most successful and popular glass designers. A colorful icon. She began her career as a ceramicist and was given space to try the material in the cabin in Åfors, in 1971. She combined superb craftsmanship with boundless playfulness. Her characteristic motifs have adorned everything from crystal vases to British jet planes. She left no one untouched and is invaluable to Kosta Boda. As a glass artist, she was a form rebel, a storyteller who, with her humor, had great popular support and appreciation.
Simon Klenell and Amanda Lund – 2021 scholarship recipients
The designer, glassblower and artist Simon Klenell is the 2021 recipient of the Ulrica Hydman Valliens foundation’s scholarship: SEK 90,000 including an invitation to do his own experiments in the cabin at Orrefors Kosta Boda.
New for this year is that the foundation also encourages the Riksglassskolan’s training of glassblowers and glass artists by awarding newly graduated Amanda Lund a scholarship of SEK 10,000.
Since graduating from Konstfack, Simon Klenell has had a successful career as a studio glassblower. With curiosity and skill, he has immersed himself in the technical conditions of classical glass art and adding new dimensions through strong artistic expressions. Disarmingly, with his poetic humor he breaks boundaries. He is a form rebel with strong integrity.
Simon Klenell was born in 1985 in Sunne in Värmland, educated at Orrefors glass school and art department, 2006–11. Since 2017, he has been part of the collective Sthlm Glas in Gustavsberg.
Amanda Lund was born in 1991 in Orrefors and grew up in a glass factory family. In 2021, she completed a three-year education at Riksglasskolan.
Ulrica Hydman Vallien (1938–2018) was one of the country’s most successful and popular glass designers. A colorful icon. She began her career as a ceramicist and was given space to try the material in the cabin in Åfors, in 1971. She combined superb craftsmanship with boundless playfulness. Her characteristic motifs have adorned everything from crystal vases to British jet planes. She left no one untouched and is invaluable to Kosta Boda. As a glass artist, she was a form rebel, a storyteller who, with her humor, had great popular support and appreciation.
Sissi Westerberg – 2020 scholarship recipient
Sissi Westerberg is this year’s recipient of the Ulrica Hydman Valliens Stiftels scholarship: SEK 90,000 including an invitation to do her own experiments in the cabin at Orrefors Kosta Boda.
Sissi Westerberg (born 1975) is educated at the Department of Metal at Konstfack. Her ability to challenge, and to simultaneously communicate with empathy and humor through her works, arouses curiosity. On the small scale, she makes jewelry with surprising points. The interest in tying together volumes and structures to create shapes and dimensions that relate to the body is a driving force in her artistic development. Already in the iconic Flow pewter candle holder, which was included in Svenskt Tenn’s tribute collection in 2004, she evoked a multifaceted dualism, both playful and serious. In the ongoing work, the decoration for the new healthcare center in Finspång, she lets her Ornamentum Petentibus, (Rococo-inspired foliage in an inflated scale made of aluminium) meander in and out through tight concrete, architecture unites with nature. Included is a free relationship to the design language of predecessors over the centuries, and to create a contemporary dialogue through the choice of materials, not least to screw the shape to one’s own sharpness. The facade decorations, which can be found on rental properties in Norrköping, are a tribute to modernism’s abstract play with geometric shapes.
Ulrica Hydman Vallien (1938–2018) was one of the country’s most successful and popular glass designers. A colorful icon. She began her career as a ceramicist and was given space to try the material in the cabin in Åfors, in 1971. She combined superb craftsmanship with boundless playfulness. Her characteristic motifs have adorned everything from crystal vases to British jet planes. She left no one untouched and is invaluable to Kosta Boda. As a glass artist, she was a form rebel, a storyteller who, with her humor, had great popular support and appreciation.
Ellen Ehk Åkesson – 2019 scholarship recipient
Ceramist and artist Ellen Ehk Åkesson was the first recipient of the Ulrica Hydman Vallien foundation scholarship. Ellen studied at the School of Design and Crafts (HDK) in Gothenburg and since her debut in 2002, she has garnered acclaim for her work and public art commissions – most recently, a work of art at Ekenäskajen, Gröndal, commissioned by Stockholm Konst. She is inspired by nature and the forest, which she incorporates in both portrayals and abstract formations. The award was presented by the chair of the foundation, Hampus Vallien, in Ljusgården at NK Stockholm in August 2019.
The jury’s statement:
“Ellen Ehk Åkesson employs empathetic integrity to create forms and designs which are powerfully moving in their surroundings, stimulating new associations and reflection.
Ellen transforms her roots in the soil of Småland into headstrong dimensions by emphasising contrasts and exuberant imagination. Thus far she has primarily taken on the challenge of clay, but the lantern in her piece Stone and Lantern opens the doors to further exploration of the potential of glass.
Clay was also Ulrica Hydman Vallien’s material and through glass, she pushed into new creative territory. Hopefully, with her scholarship, Ellen Ehk Åkesson will also find new domains.”
Ellen Ehk Åkesson on the opportunity to work with Kosta Boda
“Access to Kosta’s enormous expertise and craftsmanship is absolutely amazing. Working with glass is very different from working with other materials. I’ve primarily worked with clay and wax before, materials that are slow and that permit changes for a long time. Glass is so immediate; it requires quick decisions and enormous presence. I’m used to being able to practice the craft myself, so it’s also a challenge for me to achieve ideas through others’ handiwork. Getting a work team to understand the impressions I’m trying to create is challenging, but also really exciting; it’s a convergence not only of materials, but also of people. My work is often very experimental, and I explore my way to expression by trying different techniques in which the materials should meet my narrative. This approach requires patience and it’s a far cry from working with large-scale production. In the beginning of the process, it’s important to have the courage to pause with something half-finished, to not stress out so that you can lean towards making something ordinary. That’s when the unexpected can happen; that’s where I find traces of something invaluable to the process of continuing my work. Having the chance to do exactly that, to search not only for answers, but also for questions, is a unique opportunity. What is the glass trying to say to me? I also feel that just visiting a glassworks, seeing all the skilled workers in so many areas of the process, is incredibly inspiring. I get so many ideas. I become curious. I want to learn.”