Introduced in the present day (12 August), Ikea’s newest assortment seeks to reply some fairly lofty questions: what’s artwork, what can it do and why does it matter? Known as ‘Konstrunda’, the gathering contains 22 ornamental objects, textiles and furnishings items by seven artists and designers, whose transient was to convey artwork into the house.
Designs from the ‘Konstrunda’ assortment
(Picture credit score: Ikea)
Utilizing the phrases ‘liberated, comfortable and fearless’ as a information, Andu Masebo, Lisa Hilland, Igor Holtermann, Ingrid Leander Berg, Emanuele Stamuli, Lisa Reiser and Akanksha Deo have provide you with a group of adventurous items – principally vessels and ornamental objects that you may think about displayed on a plinth in an artwork gallery, but additionally intriguing textiles and small items of furnishings with out-of-the-ordinary types and finishes.
Designs from the ‘Konstrunda’ assortment
(Picture credit score: Ikea)
To create ‘Konstrunda’, Ikea artistic chief Karin Gustavsson says she intentionally selected folks working throughout totally different disciplines and with quite a lot of supplies and methods. ‘Some are folks I’ve labored with for years, whereas others I found via their exhibitions or by following their work,’ she explains. ‘“Konstrunda” is rooted in a perception that artwork ought to be accessible. Quite than specializing in a selected format, the gathering invitations a number of interpretations of what artwork within the dwelling might be.’
‘We are able to convey distinctive artwork objects into folks’s houses at a scale only a few others can’
Karin Gustavsson, artistic chief, Ikea
In ‘Konstrunda’, these interpretations vary from Swedish designer Lisa Reiser’s ornamental tabletop objects, with their futuristic, fluid types realised in shiny lacquered glass, to Andu Masebo’s tubular metal facet tables, mirror-polished-stainless-steel doughnut-shaped vessel and geometric lacquered pine stools.
Akanksha Deo has created a sequence of ‘companion’ items, whereas Emanuele Stamuli has contributed black and white objects based mostly on graphic, totemic types, and Swedish designers Igor Holtermann and Ingrid Leander Berg have created cotton cushion covers, a rug and a mirror adorned with overlapping palm motifs.
Andu Masebo together with his Ikea designs
(Picture credit score: Ikea)
Some of the recognisable names among the many cohort is London designer Andu Masebo (recognised as a Future Icon by Wallpaper* again in December 2022), whose latest tasks embody bespoke furnishings for TOG’s sustainable Black & White Constructing, modular tables for AHEC, an exhibition of birdhouses on the South London Gallery and a reside design-research undertaking for London Design Competition 2025. His items for the ‘Konstrunda’ assortment translate a design language already established via that wider follow into objects obtainable at an Ikea value level. He sees his objects for Ikea as prompts for patrons to train their very own creativity.
Designs from the ‘Konstrunda’ assortment
(Picture credit score: Ikea)
‘What I really like about these objects essentially the most is that they create the potential for the creativity of others within the dwelling,’ he tells Wallpaper*. ‘Surfaces that naturally invite ornament, objects that mirror their surroundings and that change relying on what’s organized round and in them. Artwork is not simply an object, it is also an motion.’
Educated in carpentry, metalwork and ceramics, Masebo has mentioned previously that his hands-on involvement within the making course of has naturally led him to design objects with an air of honesty or fact to them – or, as he places it, ‘issues that have interaction with how they’re made and that lean extra into emotions than aesthetics’. The collaboration with Ikea has tapped into this inclination, exhibiting up in his materials and ending decisions, which he has stored intentionally easy ‘in order that the making wouldn’t contain any pointless processes’.
(Picture credit score: Ikea)
For visible artist and in-house Ikea designer Akanksha Deo, whose playful work references Indian textile traditions, the items she has created for ‘Konstrunda’ should not simply objects, however one thing nearer to mates. They embody ‘The Melting Pot’, a extremely polished stainless-steel vessel squeezed into itself, folding inwards like one thing caught mid-gesture. ‘The Custodian’ – a stack of constructing blocks with a mirrored centre – attracts on the picket toys of Channapatna, a small city in Karnataka, India, recognized for generations of turned-wood craftsmanship. ‘It watches over your area while you’re gone, and sits quietly with you while you’re dwelling,’ she says. In the meantime, ‘Confetti Carol’ – the identify given to a dangling tapestry made out of blue recycled polyester – exists merely to convey a bit optimism right into a room.
‘A little bit levity goes a good distance’
Akanksha Deo, in-house Ikea designer
Akanksha Deo together with her ornamental objects and wall hanging for Ikea’s ‘Konstrunda’ assortment
(Picture credit score: Ikea)
‘Rising up, I watched how simply reverence finds its manner into small issues: a stone positioned on a windowsill, a leaf stored for no cause, a carved determine given a reputation,’ she displays. ‘There’s one thing in us that desires to imagine an object can maintain greater than its materials, that it might probably watch, bear in mind, defend.’
For Deo, bringing artwork into the house ought to be one thing joyful and even a bit humorous. ‘Life is genuinely not that critical, and design that pretends in any other case tends to be exhausting to be round. A little bit levity goes a good distance. We might all use extra of it, frankly.’
Akanksha Deo with ‘The Custodian’, a sculptural totem
(Picture credit score: Ikea)
For Ikea, ‘Konstrunda’ additionally seems like an additional push into the territory of collectible design – one thing its experimental Ikea ‘PS’ collections and collaborations with designers together with Gustaf Westman and Ilse Crawford have edged in the direction of previously, with some items later turning into sought-after on the secondary market. ‘Konstrunda’ brings a few of the experimentation, particular person authorship and art-object high quality related to collectible design into the realm of mass manufacturing.
‘We are able to convey distinctive artwork objects into folks’s houses at a scale only a few others can,’ displays Gustavsson. ‘For me personally, working on the intersection of artwork and mass manufacturing has been some of the rewarding components of this undertaking. It was a continuing stability between preserving the artistic imaginative and prescient and discovering revolutionary methods to supply it for the numerous.’
‘Konstrunda’ shall be obtainable worldwide from 1 September 2026
Akanksha Deo’s designs from the ‘Konstrunda’ assortment
(Picture credit score: Ikea)
