On the 27th of August the winner of this years’ Time to Design award was announced at the award ceremony at the Danish Art Workshops.
This year there were two winners – a young design duo called Chudy & Grase, alias Jasmina Grase from Riga and Nils Chudy from Berlin. They both recently graduated from Design Academy Eindhoven, but they have been planning a professional collaboration for a long time. Now their collaboration is finally a reality and together they have won the Time to Design Award with their project “Viewpoint”.

”The jury is confident to have found both talent and dedication in Chudy & Grase. They find Chudy & Grase’s work very interesting and driven by the passion of creating new, inspiring design. Their work shows strength both in idea and in aesthetics. On top of this the young team seems to have high demands for their own working process and also a critical approach to what role design should play for us all”.

Chudy & Grase have a vision of leaving their mark in life. ”We believe that communicating one’s work is a key aspect of designing today. Hence, we are deeply intrigued by designers and manufacturers who have the ability to communicate their work using unconventional channels. We are aware that we are probably not going to save the world or anything comparable, but if we accomplish to make someone’s day just a bit better because of our products – then we did something right!”

Chudy & Grase entered Time to Design with a product that reflected this vision of making a difference in someone’s everyday life. “During our research for “Viewpoint” we found out that people with depression perceive the world more realistically than healthy people. That means most of us actually don’t see life how it really is – and why should we? It is far more fun to challenge the boundaries between what we CAN and CANNOT see. Inspired by this phenomenon we researched different aspects that allow us to play tricks on our perception. It seemed logical to have a mirror as an end result”, the duo explains.
This led to a mirror mounted on a light panel. While you slide the mirror above the patterned light panel, you can decide if you want to see yourself or prefer that your reflection dissolves into the white light.
CHUDY & GRASE’s FURTHER WORK
“Viewpoint” is about to be finished. Therefore, the jury has asked the young design team to come up with an idea for a new project to work on during their residency at the Danish Art Workshops. The choice has been made, and they have decided to work on a delicate light source in the shape of circles of different sizes – thereby the name “Circle”. “We wish the light would just be there. Not dressed in plastic shades and covers”.
JURY 2014
The guest members of the 2014 jury were Margrethe Odgaard (designer), Ikko Yokoyama (writer and curator, Japan/Sweden) and Nicolai Wiig Hansen (designer).
Further jury members are representatives of the partners of the award: Frederik Hardvendel, director of the Danish Art Workshops; Poul Madsen, CEO and founder of Normann Copenhagen; Jesper Pagh, editor at The Danish Architectural Press; Mi¬chael Eirup, consultant at The Danish Ass. of Wood and Furniture Industries, and Jacob Herold, Design Denmark.