DesignTalks 2022 - COMPANY, Aamu Song and Johan Olin, artists and designers

Artists and designers, Aamu Song and Johan Olin of COMPANY will be speaking at DesignTalks 2022, the international conference and signature event of DesignMarch, exploring how design and architecture can help imagine and propose alternative futures and promote change. 

COMPANY is Aamu Song & Johan Olin, based in Helsinki, Finland. They work as artists and designers – often more like detectives – and run their own shop Salakauppa in Helsinki. Their work is exhibited and sold in museum and galleries around the world, including MOMA, MUJI, Artek and Design Museum Helsinki.  

They visit places with rich industrial heritages and work with the local craftspeople to create new products in a contemporary way while demonstrating the skills of the industrial traditions.

They've worked with traditional manufacturers creating the Secret series since 2007, starting with Finland, then Secrets of Korea, Belgium, Russia, Estonia, Japan, USA, Mexico - and during the pandemic: Secrets of Imagnationland. 

Currently, they’re “working with mountains and stormy seas in the outskirts of Lofoten, Norway”.

DesignTalks 2022 will take place in Harpa on the 4th of May and is curated by Hlin Helga Guðlaugsdóttir. This year the event will be moderated by Marcus Fairs, editor-in-chief and founder of Dezeen, connecting the conversations to a wider context, highlighting its relevance to an audience across professional fields.

The programme will be an exploration of resilient approaches, regeneration and reconnection with traditional crafts and indigenious wisdom, experiments rewiring and rethinking current systems, the design of data and information, extended realities and speculation into the future as a form of creative and critical reflection of the now.

“It will be a celebration of imagination - and a moment for deep thinking.” - curator Hlin Helga

Aamu Song and Johan Olin will join Anders Lendager, architect, CEO and founder of Lendager Group, Liam Young, sci-fi architect and director, Giorgia Lupi, information designer and partner at Pentagram, Stefán Laxness, architectural researcher and artist and Valdís Steinarsdóttir, designer.

A full day of inspiration on May 4th and stay tuned as we will announce more  speakers for DesignTalks 2022!

Join us in Reykjavík! Special early bird price until midnight tonight, April 6th.