Ex-Works 2025 College Tour
Ex-Works 2025 College Tour
Instead of separate college shows, the Ex-Works exhibition lets students from five Swedish design colleges present their work side by side. Here’s how the 2025 edition is coming together and what ideas are driving it.
In 2020 and 2022, the Museum of Furniture Studies organized highly acclaimed exhibitions, offering design and craft students the opportunity to show their diploma works together in one location. Students from the five Swedish design colleges with furniture design programs - Beckmans College of Design, HDK-Valand Academy of Art and Design, HDK-Valand Campus Steneby, Konstfack University of Arts, Crafts and Design, and Malmstens Linköping University - were invited to showcase their design projects. As a part of the museum’s inclusive democratic approach, no jury evaluation was made prior to the exhibitions. Participation was open to every student in their last year of studies for a bachelor’s or master’s degree in furniture design. Usually, the college’s degree exhibitions are only shown for a few days in different places that are not easy for the public to visit. Now, students from five colleges could show their work together in one place for the first time. As a visitor, you can experience the whole spectrum of young Swedish furniture design and compare the outcomes from different schools.
These exhibitions, called Ex-Works, were loved by the museum visitors, inspired upcoming design students, and, not least, proved to have a significant impact on both the design academy and the furniture industry. As a final arrangement before each year´s exhibition ended, the museum organized a matchmaking event between the students and the industry. Here, the new young designers could pitch their ideas to company directors and design managers of the most progressive furniture companies. On this special day, essential contacts were made, resulting in several new assignments for young designers. In hindsight, it's easy to say that Ex-Works 2020 and 2022 became great successes.
Now it's time for Ex-Works 2025
When the destination company IKEA Älmhult acquired the Museum of Furniture Studies in 2024, they proclaimed the Ex-Works project as one of the cornerstones of their coming museum content. Helping young design talents at the start of their careers is one the most important ways of enhancing the future design industry. This aligns with the museum’s ideology of focusing on furniture design's past, present, and future.
During March and April this year, I visited the five schools again. This time, together with Eva Lilja Löwenhielm, Global Design Manager at IKEA. To prepare for the Ex-Works 2025 project, we met all design students. We were introduced to their degree works and were able to provide some coaching and feedback. It´s fascinating to see the range of new, fresh ideas from the coming generation of Swedish designers. Some offer unexpected solutions to well-known design problems, while others present new design thinking regarding functionality or material exploration. Unsurprisingly, one common platform for most of the works is the consideration of sustainability. It´s also interesting to see the growing social engagement of young students and their focus on the preservation of craft traditions. There is great hope for an existing development in the Swedish furniture culture.
Come and experience the fascinating works of young furniture designers at the Pop-Up Ex-Works 2025 exhibition, opening on the 4th of June this summer in Älmhult.
Article written by Lars Bülow
Architet & former museum director at Möbeldesignmuseum
