Anders Jahre Winners 2008. Courtesy photos Anders Jahres Humanitære Stiftelse
Yesterday, designer Peter Opsvik and glass artist Ulla-Mari Brantenberg received the Anders Jahre's Cultural Prize 2008, together with two young talents (Daniel Rybakken and Tuva Gonsholt) the prize winners had helped selecting.
Because I have a special research interest for designing, I will focus on the designers here. According to the press releases, this is the first time a designer receives this prize.
In collaboration with the prize winner, a young designer was also awarded, as already introduced this was Daniel Rybakken, educated from Industrial Design, AHO.
Congratulations to both designers Peter and Daniel!
The award ceremony was in Oslo's Gamle Logen, and the prize winners surprised the audience with a shared music performance - Peter Opsvik is a good sax player but few had expected Ulla to sing. It was terrific my brother told! Sadly I was not there but Princess Astrid was! (see link below to Kongehuset).
See more on the prize and prize winners here http://www.ajhs.no/scripts/ingress/read.pl?id=080630103026-95
http://www.kongehuset.no/c26939/nyhet/vis.html?tid=73195
Sitting with movement and variation. Opsvik is known in design milieus and beyond because of his contribution to innovating sitting. Among his commonly used designed products is his Tripp Trapp chair that "grows with the child" (produced by STOKKE). He has also designed a variety of human-centered chairs or "sitting tools" for people to sit actively at home, in the studio or elsewhere (including the balans and rocking-wise chairs codeveloped with STOKKE, now sold through Varier). Further, Opsvik has codesigned a range of office chairs and conference chairs for work settings aiming for "movement and variation" (codeveloped with HÅG, cf. especially the HAG CREDO and the HAG Capisco, the latter is a sadle-like chair. I sit in it at BI everyday, it feels very good for my back and whole body!).
Rethinking sitting. There are of course many sources of inspiration behind what has crystallized as "Rethinking sitting" (Opsvik's new book, 2008). Among the fundamental inspirational sources was the Danish dr. Mandal working on improving school children's seating possibilities, and Opsvik met Mandal and other specialists involved in ergonomics at HAG.
Furthermore, another critical source is the Norwegian Balans design group with its alternative sitting conception and models brought forward by a group of four in the late 1970s, i.e. three designers one of them was Peter Opsvik, the others were Svein Gusrud, and Oddvin Rykken and all of them worked with Hans Christian Mengshoel, an inventor who has been attributed for the concept. At the time all of them interacted in various ways to create an alternative sitting, which eventually contributed to the new thinking. Also a few companies became involved in this co-creation and further development such as HAG, STOKKE and RYBO).
Although complex design work often involves team work, it is a significant contribution over a life-time by Opsvik (who also is a musician and designs artistic cupboards). No doubt, his efforts have been crossing disciplinary and other borders, and this was explicitly acknowledged by the prize committee headed by Åse Kleveland.
For more elaboration on Peter Opsvik, Stokke and HAG and their design collaborations, see research articles and reports on my website:
http://www.bi.no/Content/AcademicProfile____37600.aspx?ansattid=FGL98006&siteid=2D93E6C6062086B2C12571C4005B9DF5&type=pages
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