Pil Bredahl announced as curator of The Mindcraft Exhibition 2025
Pil Bredahl has been appointed as curator of The Mindcraft Exhibition 2025, to be held from October 2nd – 5th at The Lab in Copenhagen. Pil brings with her a wealth of experience from a diverse cross section within the design and craft communities in Denmark and abroad, but also the wider social, cultural and environmental implications of good design on our everyday lives. We sat down with Pil to discuss her approach to bridging tradition and innovation, and what visitors can expect from this year’s exhibition.
Having graduated with a Masters of Design from the Royal Danish Academy in the late 1990’s, Pil Bredahl has spent her time since graduation adding knowledge and skill to the very hands-on and practical base of her education in the Danish capital. Self-confessing to a constant need to update and pursue new educational and professional directions in the twenty-five plus years since graduation, Pil’s day-to-day expresses her unique ability to meld the past, present and future of design and craft. Living and working from the former home of Danish artist couple Ejler Bille and Agnethe Terkelsen – designed for them by architect Claus Bremer in the 1960’s, Pil spreads her time between roles with Fair Trade Designers empowering local communities and the continuation of artisan crafts, as a lay judge with Denmark’s Maritime and Commercial Court, and on the DR television program Denmark’s Next Classic supporting the next generation of Danish designers – amongst curatorial and board roles within organisations and businesses. Pil views herself as a busy bee within a flourishing garden, flying from flower to flower with a cumulative effect that allows all of her various roles to grow and thrive.
“With all of my different work areas, even though they all contain quite different tasks – for me there is an eternal cross-pollination between them. This allows me to contribute with multiple perspectives on any one individual task, with design and craft always being that common denominator. I really enjoy working in this way.”
It is Pil Bredahl’s unique ability to follow design and craft from the artisans hands, through to the political and social constructs that shape how the public interact and relate to good design and craft that brings a new perspective to The Mindcraft Exhibition 2025. In this way, Pil notes the strength of Denmark’s foundations when it comes to using design as a positive contributor to society at large – but is also aware of the constant need for innovation within all aspects of design and craft. With decades spent growing the depth and diversity of her knowledge base, Pil is quick to note that innovations in materials, processes and design expressions are not something that is always immediately evident within new work, and the importance of platforms like The Mindcraft Project to allow designers and makers the space to show experiments, new design languages and solutions.
“The only really interesting thing about design is how it relates to people. That is one of my favourite quotes from one of my all-time favourite designers Victor Papanek. I also believe that for design to be important enough to actually become a physical object in our world it has to be somehow revolutionary or radical. These are qualities one can not necessarily recognise in one’s own time, but as time passes some design stands out as work that highlights a new or different perspective on how we shape our surroundings.”
Talking to Pil about her approach to the curation of The Mindcraft Exhibition 2025, she discusses the strength of the Danish design and craft community across a range of materials and processes, across age groups and generations, as well as a mix between those working as designer-makers, those working with industry and others with multiple directions and outcomes. From textile and ceramic, wood, glass, steel and aluminium, this years selected participants reflect the strong legacy Danish designers have in approaching craft and form-giving. What intertwines this diverse group is a contemporary take to approaching design and craft as a holistic profession in touch with the real-time concerns of how the act of creating can impact the environment and people.
“Some of this year’s participants choose only to work in natural material that are sourced very carefully, some make small handcrafted editions while others choose to minimise their material use and stick to materials that can easily be reused or recycled. It is a condition to work within the planetary boundaries in all areas of the design field today, and this generation does it naturally.”
How each designer’s work either mimics or contains elements of natures structures or forms is a key point of connection throughout The Mindcraft Exhibition 2025. The enthusiasm and belief Pil has in the ability of good design to awaken our knowledge of the world around us, and to become a gateway for each of us to connect to each other and our surroundings, is something she hopes visitors and viewers will take from this year’s edition.
“I am currently interested in forms, surfaces and figures that resonate as elements of nature in our perception. What is it that attracts us, excites our attention and sharpens our presence? All pieces have been chosen because I believe they have that special quality that can make us expand the limiting part of our reason. Because, when that happens, it can give us the courage to fall in love with something we cannot comprehend or explain. And I do think that is good for us.”
The Mindcraft Exhibition 2025 will launch as both a physical and digital exhibition on October 2nd, 2025.
