Phoenix Forms
Collaboration with 14 furniture gallery
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Phoenix Forms, a collaborative exhibition developed for 3 Days of Design in Copenhagen with contemporary works by Kajsa Willner in dialogue with 14furniture antique pieces.
Rather than presenting historical and contemporary design as separate categories, the project examines how objects operate across time, and how design becomes a medium through which societies process moments of systemic transformation. The exhibition brings together nineteenth-century Danish furniture and decorative works with newly produced pieces by Willner.
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The historical works originate from a period shaped by industrialisation, political instability and changing economic structures – conditions that closely echo the technological and social shifts of the present moment, defined by automation, artificial intelligence and the reorganisation of labour. Seen in this context, design does not simply reflect change but actively participates in shaping how change is understood and absorbed. Within this framework, design is not only a response to technological change, but also a tool through which economic structures are made visible, stabilised, and culturally embedded.
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Phoenix Forms explores this through a series of pairings between historical and contemporary works. Constantin Hansen’s “Angel Chair” (1845), Lorenz Frølich’s mythological folding screen (c. 1865) joint with Willner's conceptual textile, and works by M. G. Bindesbøll and Cathrine Horsbøl are placed in dialogue with new works such as Women vs Machine, Overrun Murano, and 5G. Across these constellations, questions of labour, craft, technology, and material transformation reappear in altered form. Rather than treating history as a linear progression, the exhibition draws on a non-linear understanding of time in which forms, symbols, and production methods migrate and resurface under new conditions. Materials retain memory, and design becomes a site where past and present continuously negotiate each other.
The project ultimately asks how design behaves during periods of technological transition – and what is preserved, transformed, or lost when systems of production and value are fundamentally reorganised. While technologies change, the economic structures that organise production and value remain remarkably persistent.
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Overrun Murano
Ceiling light
The work reflects on the disappearance of craft traditions such as glass and furniture making in Sweden, and what is lost when technical knowledge, cultural heritage, and local production systems fade. It points to a shift from craft-based production to global mass production and consumption, overrun by many companies that are part of this “new” cultural legacy.
Made at Orranäs Glasbruk - Glassblower Ned Cantrell.
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Woman vs Machine
Copper Mirror
Women vs Machine Willner’s Women vs Machine subverts traditional industrial production by using a hand-built press powered by her own body weight. She visually and physically rebels against rationalized, mechanized labor by turning the human body into a mechanical tool. This conceptual framework blurs the line between operator and machine, echoing ongoing discourses in the Future of Work; how work is changing due to technology, automation, artificial intelligence, robotics, platform economies, and shifting relationships between humans and machines. Questioning what we want human labor for?
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Craft Punk
Table and Vase
Kajsa Willner’s Craft Punk vase and table elevate discarded wood waste into monolithic, geometric sculptures. By applying the ancient Japanese shou sugi ban (yakisugi) charring technique, she transforms residual materials otherwise destined for energy incineration into a deep black, tactile, and durable finish. Willner challenges modern manufacturing systems, breathing new life into secondary resources to highlight the hidden potential in discarded waste.
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I was here
Chair
The title "I was here" is a nod to Willner’s perspective on time, personal histories, and who gets included in the design history. It serves as a stark contrast to the historical and present "master designers" (predominantly men) who developed thousands of chairs. The chair "I was here" features subtle aesthetic references to the 1980s, the decade of Willner’s birth. Crafted from locally sourced elm from Småland and expertly built by cabinetmaker Victor Modin.
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Human Emotions
Clay side tables
Clay is a material that connects modern minds to our earliest ancestors. Shaped from the earth beneath our feet, it has accompanied humanity for thousands of years, from the first vessels and figurines to clay tablets stamped with cuneiform. Throughout history, humans have relied on writing, art and craft to process, express and preserve shared emotions and experiences. Clay also reconnects us with a form of knowledge that exists beyond language and rational thought. Making becomes a dialogue between material, body and mind, allowing the hands to access an intuitive intelligence and linking us to the earth, to each other, and to what it means to be human.
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Emulate Nature
Candle holder, earrings
A new addition to the Emulate Nature series, which explores the replication of nature both visually and through processes of production. “In nature, nothing goes to waste; everything continues into the next cycle.” The material is tin from Boliden is 100% recycled tin. Tin has a low melting point and requires less energy to melt and form compared to other metals. It can also be melted down again and recycled to create new works.
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I SEE
Table light
Is not a standard light reflection, but a physical phenomenon called birefringence (double refraction).The lamp uses polarizing filters that force light waves to vibrate in a single plane. When this polarized light passes through clear plastic (often single-use plastic or industrial waste), the light splits into two rays traveling at different speeds. The Result: Internal stress patterns and imperfections—completely invisible to the naked eye—suddenly emerge as a vibrant, colorful kaleidoscope. This directly mimics how materials scientists use polarization microscopes to analyze stress factors in solid materials. Which is also how the concept first emerged, from an interdisciplinary collaboration with a material scientist in the project What Matter_s, shown at Dutch Design Week 2018. Willner's title I SEE illustrates the gap between sight and comprehension, not only in science.
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5G
Mirror
This mirror, crafted via hand embossing — a technique dating back to the Anatolian Neolithic period—uses recycled aluminium beer cans to frame our modern era. Its embossed surface juxtaposes ancient craft with contemporary techno-dystopia, illustrating war drones, 5G masts, female sexbots, misinformation and hyper-connected humans blindly trusting AI.
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Burn_m_f_brun
Textile
Within the frame of Lorenz Frølich's Mythological Folding Screen (c. 1865), collected by 14 furniture, Willner has created a conceptual textile composed of two layers of Thai silk, punctured by burn marks and veiled beneath a layer of organza. Historians generally agree that capitalism began to take shape in Europe between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries, becoming the dominant modern economic system during the Industrial Revolution. A system that is no longer sustainable to uphold as a framework for the future. As we stand at the threshold of the AI transition, we are confronted with a different necessity: to produce less, consume less, and rethink the values upon which our societies are built.
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PHOTO CREDITS
Robert Våhlström
Nadia Chafra
Curator
Marie Jacobi
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Artist - Kajsa Willner
In relation to 1800 century Danish design
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Exhibition
3 days of design, 2026
14 furniture gallery
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