Katrin Greiling’s work as a designer has taken her to the deserts of the UAE and further east still to the jungles of Indonesia. The Stockholm-based Munich native’s designs often have Nordic bones, but they’re made by hand in small workshops thousands of miles away. Her work as a photographer — an intended hobby that has morphed into a career — is also in high demand. But what makes the mind of this multi-disciplinary, globetrotting creative tick?
As a child, Greiling was always artistic, but she cites Donald Judd’s functional-minded work as initially sparking her interest in design. After high school in Munich, Greiling enrolled in a carpentry course at the Carl Malmsten School, making a move to the southern Swedish island of Öland. Upon graduating from Konstfack, Greiling forewent a steady career in Stockholm, upping sticks and taking a post at a firm in Dubai. “It was weird to move from the established scene in Europe, but there were benefits,” she says.
Like: The move made her more independent as a designer, braver, and more willing to take risks. Dubai, she says, was an adventure for her. Through wayward exploring deep into the desert as well as Dubai’s dense building sites, Greiling started to build a huge library of photographs. “I was finding a new image of beauty,” she says and also realizing the virtues of a life behind the lens. Her camera began to allow her access to places otherwise out of bounds. These observations provided an entry point for her designs.
The designer moved back to Stockholm in 2009 but her work continues to propel her around the globe. What’s the most remote place design has taken her? On one trip to Indonesia, she heard about a highly skilled bamboo craftsman and decided she had to look him up. “I went on a bus for four hours through the jungle,” she says. “Then I got picked up on a motorbike and rode further into the jungle.” She arrived at a tiny village, completely on her own, met the guy, and tried to make herself understood; she thinks some of the villagers were a little shocked by her guts. But Greiling says her most exciting trip is still ahead of her. Here’s a look at 8 things that keep her moving forward.
The wooden floor at the Musée Rodin in Paris: “I went to the museum last year. Of course I was taken by Rodin’s work, but most of all I loved the floor. It was so unexpected. This spontaneous reparation seems unplanned; geometric but practical. It is creating beauty without really trying to create beauty… it just happened.”
Other photographers: “I didn’t study photography, but I work in the field, and so I’m hungry to learn more. Erwin Blumenfeld and Serge Balkin are two new recent discoveries for me. I had never heard of them but I can see how they are influenced by the Bauhaus.” This photograph by Serge Balkin was taken in 1945. “By not showing the face, having this strong shadow, and picturing a woman with a bike, it depicts freedom. It is about emancipation. It is loaded in a way that’s hard to understand today.”
Other photographers: Greiling discovered the work of German photographer Wolfgang Tillmans growing up in Munich. “He finds beauty in plants, vegetables, a window; his way of seeing is unique. He was one of the first photographers I felt attached to.”
Other photographers: Bas Princen has shot Dubai’s architecture extensively, as has Greiling herself. “I was impressed by the body of work he produced in Dubai. Architecture is subjective, so a way of seeing is super important.”
The view from above: “In Dubai, I lived on the 23rd floor with these huge windows that dropped all the way down. I just loved that view. It can give you perspective when the horizon is so wide. I think that has a really positive effect on me. It is the same when you are in a plane. Being above the clouds, there is no end, no limitation. It makes me feel everything is possible, and my thoughts are just flowing in a different way.”
Adventure and the unknown: “I grew up in a spontaneous family, but on a personal level I discovered how adventurous I am when I moved to Dubai and set out on my own. I had this cheap Jeep I drove around everywhere, and I just felt had access to everything.” In Dubai, Greiling would often go off exploring alone, SMS-ing worried friends her GPS coordinates.
Adventure and the unknown: On one occasion she drove deep into the desert and made herself sleep on the roof of her car. “With each experience like that you become even stronger,” she says. “You realize there is nothing to be scared of.”
Adventure and the unknown: “In Dubai I was inspired by a nomadic lifestyle, and I spent time exploring the desert. The stacked mattresses you find in nomadic Emirati’s tents directly inspired my Bidoun sofa. It’s a temporary way of living. But there is a personal touch, as the rope used is what Dubai also meant to me; there is so much transport and cargo in Deira (the old city), and in the docks boats are overloaded with goods — there is just so much rope.”
Traveling and seeing: “In 2012, I don’t even know how many trips I took. Because I travel as both a photographer and a designer, it’s kind of a lot. I sometimes say that I could concentrate more if I stayed in one place, but at the same time I get so much back when I travel. Curiosity itself, I think, can bring you steps further. By observing and seeing how things are used, or how they are made, I get my ideas.” When she watches she reaches for her camera rather than her sketchbook. “Photography for me is an immediate medium to capture an observation.”
Natural History Museums: “What I like about them is how they try to depict something natural with artificial components. So there is a painted backdrop, and artificial plans, and then a tiger leaping out at you. It is like a frozen picture of nature, that in reality you would never come this close to.”
Shelter: “I have photographed some beautiful shelters that are found on building sites all around Dubai. They are the most beautiful examples of architecture, made from just found materials. I was inspired to make one myself in my apartment — I call it my office!”
Shelter: “Shelter and houses come up again and again in my work. It is intuitive. Maybe it gives me a sense of security with such a mobile life?”
Shelter: “One of the most amazing shelters I know is a tent. It is temporary but feels comfortable and cozy. It is a mix between inside and outside. When I designed Hide & Sleep, I was traveling a lot, and sometimes I just felt I wanted to rest and cover my head – the head is the most precious thing we have. I wanted to create quietness around it.”
Graphic design: “When I start a design process that should be three dimensional, I often start by picking the font; if I get stuck in three dimensions, I will go often go back to two. I was given a very strict brief by Askul (a Japanese stationery supplier) to design a wall clock, so I used graphics to minimize the restriction. The brief was ‘happy’ which was a paradox considering I designed it during the first two weeks I arrived in Dubai, when I was sitting in a hotel, on my own, probably quite unhappy!”
The first time Katrin Greiling visited Indonesia, back in 2011 on a Swedish Arts Grant, she arrived, as she always does, with her camera. The Stockholm-based designer got her first camera when she was 10, flirted with the idea of photography school, and now, in addition to her design practice, shoots portraits and interiors for publications like Wallpaper, Abitare, and Form. But photography is more than just a hobby for Greiling. She was in Indodesia to produce a daybed for Kvadrat’s Hallingdal 65 project, but she soon found that she couldn’t stop herself from photographing the rattan production going on in the same furniture workshop, a sheet-metal structure wedged among Java’s dense architecture. “Photography legitimizes me to be in certain circumstances, to come closer to a subject than a normal visitor would,” she says. By photographing the workers and their process, she came to understand rattan’s properties. It suddenly came to her: “Of course I had to work with rattan."
You only need to know a few things about Belgrade to understand where Ana Kraš comes from: It's been invaded countless times throughout history, even by the Nazis, after which it was then ravaged by Tito, Milošević, the Kosovo War, and the associated NATO bombings. When it finally emerged from its troubles in 1999, its government and economy were in shambles; the average salary in Belgrade is still less than 400 euros per month. To have become a designer in this context is exceedingly difficult — Kraš's design school had no workshop, materials, or experienced professors, and almost none of her compatriots can afford to spend money on furniture — and yet you won't find a trace of that struggle in the talented 26-year-old's work. At least not by looking at it.
Fredrik Paulsen’s work, both as a designer and as a co-founder of Stockholm’s brilliant Örnsbergsauktionen is shaking the foundations of what you think Scandinavian design ought to be. “Here you are taught to produce work for the everyman,” Paulsen says. “It’s the legacy of IKEA: Good design for everyone. But if your work doesn’t really fit into mass production and it is not intended for it, then there is no platform or venue to show it.” It was this void that led Paulsen and his friends and fellow designers Simon Klenell and Kristoffer Sundin to stage their first auction during last year’s Stockholm’s Design Week. They invited contemporaries — some they knew, others they only knew of — to submit diverse, self-made works that went beyond the cookie-cutter forms they’d grown tired of, and put them up for bidding. It paid off.
