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Interview with Monica Förster

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Monica Förster, creator of some of the most internationally renowned objects in contemporary Swedish design, is based in Stockholm but grew up close to the Arctic Circle in northern Sweden. Her work is characterised by a strong sense of pure form mixed with a never-ending curiosity for new materials and technology. Always trying to work in a cross-disciplinary way, she invents and renews typologies in industrial, furniture, and object design.

She has received the Excellent Swedish Design award, the Design Plus award in Germany, and the FutureDesignDays award. She has also been represented in the International Design Yearbook. Monica Förster designs studio works worldwide with clients such as Poltrona Frau, E&Y Japan, Offect, David Design, Nola, Väveriet and Skruf.

Style-pd (PD) : : You have been to many different countries. Was there any particular country where their attitude toward design totally differed from others?

Monica Förster (MF) : : I would say no. I have been visiting many different countries, such as Singapore, Japan, Hong Kong... What I can say is that I meet people who are really good at what they are doing. I would say that it is like... design that I like... even though someone has an Asian way of working... good design is still the same. For example, before I visited L.A., I had some bias about L.A. I had thought that everything would be made of plastic... in a bad way... but what is going on there is many independent designers coming out and new movements are happening. Of course, the flavor is different. But when they design a good thing, it is really nice.

It is also about my mind. I work as a teacher at Konstfack and Beckmans, and I always pay attention to the individuality of students. I try to look at a good thing and bring that up, and encourage them. I do think that we have our own way of looking at things. I am not saying that our way of working is the same as, say, the Italian way, but as long as it is a good design for me, I can really appreciate it. In my home, we have things that are totally crazy. We have a lamp that we bought in L.A. It looks like it has exploded! It is really weird, but it is so nice. Weird in a good way. It is just a unique expression.

PD : 50 years ago, countries like Japan, Sweden, the U.S. and Germany all had different designs and products. But thanks to mass media, it looks like the globalization of design has occurred. What do you think about this? Was it something unavoidable?

MF : I don't think it is quite like that. I have things I bought from all over the place. There are pieces I will never find here. So I don't think it is really like that. Maybe the globalization affects people, but it is unavoidable that you have your own things and perspectives, and that makes a unique expression. Whatever we do, it becomes Swedish.

PD : Can you tell us a bit about yourself? You graduated from Beckmans, correct? After that, what did you do?

MF : I worked a lot with films as an intern. At the same time, I worked with stage design and product design. I worked with music video, too. It was fun to work with movies.

PD : Does it affect your design?

MF : I am not sure. It was one of the ways of supporting myself financially.

Let me talk about my crazy project at Beckmans that explains my background as a designer. It is called "Glowing in dark toilet". It is a toilet seat glowing in darkness. It used special crystal that glows for 8 hours if you put on some light for a minute or so. At the time, it was very, very strange. (laughs) What is good about this invention is - if you wake up in the middle of night, you can go to toilet without turning on a light so you don't need to totally wake up! I learned a lot about how to use plastic materials with this project.

Then I developed the silicon lamp. At the time, in Sweden, people didn't use hi-tech materials for design. At the time, no one ever really used silicon that way.

PD : How did you come up with the idea?

MF : I spent some years at Beckmans. I did lots of experiments and made lots of ugly stuff as well. (laughs) People at that time thought that silicon is for breast implants. It didn't have a very good image for design. What happened then was Eero Koivist happened to walked by and he found it interesting. And he called me, and they decided to use the lamp for a project. They asked me if I had a producer, but of course I didn't. I was making them in my kitchen!

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