Explore the highlights of Malmö’s design festival Southern Sweden Design Days
What does a garment found on a beach in Ghana say about our consumption habits in Sweden? How can design function as therapy, social commentary, and a bridge between generations of creators? And what happens when the theme Echo is expressed through fabric scraps, reuse, and creative craftsmanship? With a packed program of 160 program activites at 80 locations across Malmö, the city will be buzzing with design from 22–25 May 2025. The full program is available at southernswedendesigndays.com.
The aim of Southern Sweden Design Days is to share knowledge about design, architecture, and crafts – with a focus on sustainability, collaboration, development, and innovation. The festival is aimed at both the general public and professional visitors. The main venue is the former railway workshops Lokstallarna, located in the Kirseberg district of Malmö.
– This year’s participants are especially focused on bringing attention to questions surrounding consumption and fashion – both as forms of expression and as part of the broader sustainability conversation. There’s a clear ambition not just to showcase design, but to use it as a tool to explore responsibility, identity, and how we can rethink our choices, as consumers and fellow humans, says project manager Ann Isler.
Visitors are invited to experience design from different perspectives in locations across Malmö, while also discovering new areas of the city. This year’s program spreads across 80 locations, from Limhamn in the west to Arlöv in the east. Southern Sweden Design Days is organised by Form/Design Center.
Apply for press accreditation to the Main Location and sign up for our guided press tour on 22 may at 13.00–14.00 on our website.
Highlights of the program
This year’s theme for Southern Sweden Design Days is ECHO, exploring the interplay between past, present, and future. Like an echo, every design decision creates ripples that influence both the environment and society. Explore the extensive program featuring over 160 program activities here →
KEYNOTE – MARIA BRUUN
The Danish furniture designer Maria Bruun is the second recipient of the newly established Bruno Mathsson Design Residency. Maria Bruun has gained international recognition for her innovative and sculptural designs, showcasing a deep understanding of the natural properties of wood. The Danish furniture designer earned her master’s degree from the Det Kongelige Danske Kunstakademi in 2012. In recent years, she has been awarded Denmark’s two most prestigious design prizes: the Wegner Prize (2022) and the Finn Juhl Prize (2021). Maria Bruun will participate in the residency from May 15 to June 15, 2025, living and working in a house from 1955 in Värnamo, designed by architect and furniture designer Bruno Mathsson at the request of Vandalorum’s founder, Sven Lundh.
Participants: Maria Bruun, Bruno Mathsson Design Residency
Location: SSDD Studio at Main location, Lokstallarna
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BREATHE CRITICAL
Breathe Critical is a fictional rehabilitation machine. It does not cure any physical symptoms, but it may cure deep-rooted beliefs that we have about the control between medical devices and one’s body. The machine stands as a two-meter-tall chamber with air pillows that are controlled by the visitor’s breath through a sensor. The design stems from medical humanities, which focuses on subjective and invisible experiences in medical practices. The work reflects on the traces of the past that echoes into the present healthcare when the medical gaze takes form of biosensors. It is developed as a part of a design research project at IT University of Copenhagen in collaboration with MUNCH museum in Oslo.
Participants: Piyakorn Koowattanataworn
Location: Main location, Lokstallarna
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RE:TREAT
In Re:Treat, Daniela Doe, Waxiu Shehu, and Yasmina Karli Malmsten combine their diverse knowledge and perspectives in a joint exhibition on textile rebirth. Through various creative approaches and artisanal techniques, functions can be altered, and aesthetic elements added in a way that breathes new life into used garments and textiles. The presence of the hand is a central part of the exhibition’s work, where the processing of materials operates on multiple levels—sometimes even as a form of therapy. AI has thus taken on a new meaning: Artisanal Intelligence.
Participants: Daniela Doe, Waxiu Shehu, Yasmina Karli Malmsten
Location: Jaktpaviljongen, Folkets Park, Falsterbogatan 11B
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CLAY
Clay is an exhibition investigating one of our most natural materials, clay, which lies hidden just beneath our feet, almost everywhere in the Swedish landscape. Kristine Thenman and Joel Stuart-Beck are both ceramicists working in Arvika. For a couple of years, they have been working together on a project based on local clay, that they first dug up and prepared, then shaped and fired into functional ware. The process and the result are now on public display in Malmö. The exhibition is organised by the Swedish Crafts Centre in collaboration with Konstfrämjandet Skåne.
Participants: Kristine Thenman, Joel Stuart-Beck, Konsthantverkscentrum
Location: Konsthantverkscentrum, c/o Konstfrämjandet Skåne, Östergatan 9A
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ALWAYS LEATHER
Leather is one of the first materials that upright man began to use for the making of clothing, bags, tent cloths and straps. And we have never stopped. Today, leather is a by-product from the food industry and, refined under the right conditions, becomes a durable material with a long lifespan. Leather is long lasting, functional, comfortable. And it ages beautifully. Come and participate in a leather workshop, where you can try designing and creating in leather. Together, design is used as a method to explore and search for new, perhaps unexpected areas of use. Get to know the material and meet professional designers with experience working with leather.
Participants: Svensk Form, Swedish Tanners
Location: Main location, Lokstallarna
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MADE FROM BANGLADESH, DUMPED IN GHANA, BACK IN MALMÖ – THREE WAYS TO BE COMPLICIT
An exhibition highlighting the environmental impact of fashion consumption and our collective responsibility. Activists from Greenpeace Africa collected clothing from beaches in Ghana, which were then sent back to their countries of origin. Three of these garments form the foundation of a work by Anna Lidström, Gustav Martner, and Jonas Larsson, where they symbolize different approaches to confronting the environmental crisis of the fashion industry.
Participants: Anna Lidström, Gustav Martner, Jonas Larsson
Location: Main location, Lokstallarna
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CRAFTING NEW FROM OLD: TEXTILE PLAY WORKSHOP
This workshop is a playful exploration of the exhibition Crafting New from Old, where you will learn how to make an item using textile waste using different methods. Centered around the theme of Echo, the workshop highlights the lasting environmental impact of textile waste and the footprint left behind by discarded materials. By showcasing the steps involved in using surplus fabrics and production offcuts to craft new pieces, participants gain insight into how different textiles interact with each other, and the "echo" between them, in the process of reimagining waste into value.
Participants: The Cloth Lab, Birgitta Helmersson STUDIO
Location: The Cloth Lab / Birgitta Helmersson STUDIO, Storgatan 26
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MUSIC GROUP SKROT'S MUSICAL PLAYGROUND
Music group SKROT's musical playground is a portable musical playground for music and movement with musical play instruments and unique sound instrument experiments. A musical playground where children can play, have fun and move around, where music, crafts, movement, play, innovation, technology and mathematics are built into unique musical play instruments-experiments.
Participants: Music group SKROT
Location: Main location, Lokstallarna
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HALSDUKSMONOPOLET PRESENTERAR EN KALL VINTERNATT I MITTEN AV MAJ
10+ scarves. 10+ artists. A textile experiment like no other. From graffiti legends and tattoo artists to textile wizards and design icons – each one has left their mark on a scarf. The result is a collection of expressions, styles, and ideas that warm more than just your neck. Patterns with attitude, fabric with meaning, and a shared attempt to stretch the limits of what a scarf can be. The cold may be imagined – but the statements are real.
Participants: M. Michaelsdotter, A one, A. Gudmundsdottir, S. Sjöbäck, E. Hannerz, J. Nordberg, S. Cederqvist, Miss Mostah, O. Janson, Finitoinkognito, Farfar, D. Sapunar, D. Christensen, B. Åberg
Location: Föreningsgatan 47B
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About FORM/DESIGN CENTER SE
Form/Design Center är den främsta mötesplatsen för arkitektur, design och konsthantverk i Sverige. I en unik kulturhistorisk miljö i centrala Malmö kan du uppleva utställningar, workshops och föreläsningar, eller besöka butiken och tidskriftscaféet. Form/Design Center är en plattform för branschen och driver olika hållbarhetsprojekt. Form/Design Center är utsedd av regeringen som nationell nod för gestaltad livsmiljö och officiell partner i New European Bauhaus. Form/Design Center startades 1964 och drivs med stöd av Kulturdepartementet, Malmö stad, Region Skåne och Statens kulturråd.
Contacts
Ann Isler
- ann@formdesigncenter.com
- 040-643 79 42