Living Peace is a social design project created together with Bethlehem Fair Trade Artisans, bringing together food, craft, design and dialogue.
A table. A piece of bread. Olive oil and za’atar. Two small dishes. A little bird carved from olive wood.
– And a conversation menu.
At the centre is a small meal kit — but it is not really about the kit. It is about what happens around the table.
The Conversation Menu invites people to begin with the familiar: memories, hopes and experiences we share. Slowly, the questions move towards trust, forgiveness, reconciliation and the possibility of living together with our differences – in peace.
It is a simple object, but perhaps also a simple thought: Peace is not something we find once and keep forever. It is something we continuously rebalance together.
Living Peace connects Palestinian artisans, Jewish-Arab producers and Danish design in a shared value chain built on craftsmanship, cooperation and mutual dependency.
It cannot stop a war. But perhaps design can create small spaces where something else becomes possible.
A meeting. A conversation. A moment of listening while sitting around a table breaking bread.
IF we decide to, we can start a bottom up peace movement right now.One meal at a time.
Gennem det seneste år (fra februar 2025) har jeg arbejdet med et projekt, jeg kalder Skov Cirklen
i skoven nordøst for Raadvad Fabrik har jeg samlet nedfaldstræ og formet en cirkel, der er ca 10 meter i diameter – med et centrum, en brønd, en kilde – en åbning af ingenting i midten
et åbent rum – ‘et sted’, der ikke var der før
et regenerativt artwork-in-progress
offentligt – fordi skoven er fælles personligt – fordi noget i mig er blevet forbundet til dette sted
jeg går derud igen og igen, ikke for at bygge videre men for at være der og holde cirklen ved lige
jeg er en slags pedel, en caretaker
fra det, vi kan måle – til det, vi kan mærke
jeg er uddannet produktdesigner fra Danmarks Designskole i 1994 herigennem er jeg vokset op med idéen om, at form follows function
at vi former verden ud fra menneskets behov at vi løser problemer, at vi optimerer
det gjorde jeg i en del år og blev så kritisk omkring formålet
derfor rettede jeg blikket mod hvordan design som metode kan bidrage til mere bæredygtighed arbejdede med materialer, systemer, værdikæder CO2e, dokumentation, lovgivning og regulering
alt det, vi kan måle alt det, vi kan bevise
men mangler noget i den tilgang, der er noget mere
et andet sted at lytte fra
under en diplomuddannelse fordybede jeg mig i Teori U og begrebet presencing
at være til stede – i nuet og i det, der er ved at blive til
at tage et ansvar for det, der må vokse frem via mig
at aflære, at se egne vaner og alt det ‘vi ved’, og give plads til det, vi endnu ikke helt forstår
Teori U præsenterede et skifte: fra form follows function til form follows consciousness
at det, vi skaber, formes af den tilstand, vi skaber fra
at zoome ud
i Design for the New World stiller Ida Engholm et enkelt spørgsmål:
hvad har jorden brug for?
ikke mennesket i centrum ikke brugeren alene
men helheden
i DesignWISE bliver design ikke kun en proces “derude” men også en bevægelse “herinde fra”
en vekselvirkning mellem det indre og det ydre
et undersøgelsesrum
jeg begyndte at interessere mig for bevidsthed
ikke som teori men som erfaring
hvad er det egentlig, vi oplever verden igennem? og hvad betyder det for det, vi bringer til verden?
hvad er virkelighed?
det er ikke et let emne at tale om måske fordi det ikke kan måles måske fordi sproget hurtigt slipper op
så jeg begyndte et andet sted
jeg kaldte det min mentale tilstand
og stillede et enkelt spørgsmål:
hvad sker der med det, jeg skaber når min indre tilstand ændrer sig?
Skov Cirklen
det er her, Skov Cirklen bliver mit laboratorium
jeg går herud er i cirklen
nulstiller og gør først – så lidt som muligt
lytter
til skoven til kroppen til det, der opstår i stilheden i og undenfor mig
tænker, arbejder, fokuserer på udvalgte opgaver
over tid begyndte noget at forskyde sig
ikke som en idé men som en oplevelse
øjeblikke, hvor grænsen mellem mig og det omkring mig føltes mindre tydelig som om opmærksomheden ikke kun var min
som om forbindelsen ikke kun gik én vej
jeg ved ikke præcis, hvad det er og jeg er ikke sikker på, at det er noget, der skal forklares
men jeg kan mærke at det har betydning
Skov Cirklen juni 2025
det, jeg undersøger nu, er ikke kun, hvordan vi skaber – men hvorfra vi skaber
og hvad der sker, når vi begynder at tage det ‘sted’ alvorligt
jeg vil forsøge at beskrive nogle af de oplevelser der er opstået i mig i Skov Cirklen
ikke som sandheder men som observationer
fra et sted i skoven hvor noget – stille og roligt – er begyndt at svare igen
Skov Cirklen januar 2026 – dyrespor rundt om kilden og videre op til Livets Træ 💚
Hvordan ser fremtiden ud, hvis vi kan forestille os den – som konkrete, forskningsbaserede bud på nye måder at leve, bo og tænke på? På udstillingen ‘Forestillinger om fremtiden’ præsenteres projekter af arkitekter og designere, der tager afsæt i aktuelle udfordringer og muligheder: Nye materialer, nye måder at bo og beskytte os på, nye måder at tænke fællesskab og bæredygtighed op – og ikke mindst nye måder at designe på.
Jeg deltager på udstillingen sammen med DesignWISE-gruppen med en lille formidling af DesignWISE metoden, som netop peger væk fra de måder vi plejer at tilgå innovation og designe på og ud i fremtiden med et planetært designperspektiv.
“Imagining the Future” løber fra den 30. oktober 2025 til 16. april 2026. Udstillingen finder sted i Akademiets udstillingshal på Danneskiold-Samsøes Allé 51 i København og er gratis at besøge på hverdage mellem kl. 10-18.
Preparing the ground. Building a Forest Circle inspired by DesignWISE, march 2025. Collecting wood in the area to forme a circle with a strong epicenter. Site-specific work, local production with available materials. Marking the four corners of the world. Working with short and long perspectives. A public-personally space. Open to all, very personally to me. DesignWISE circles at this location starts in May 2025. Please write to me, if you would like to receive an invitation.
Hvordan skaber vi uden at skade?
Skal jeg fortsætte med at afholde mig fra at udkomme? – ikke at skabe nyt, og i stedet betragte? Hvor bor så min skabertrang? Kan man i øvrigt skabe ingenting? Er et hul ingenting … og på samme tid en indramningen af et mulighedsrum, et potentiale for at noget nyt kan opstå? A matter of a new mind.
Dansk design, forstået som os designere, branchen og det vi frembringer – er ligesom resten af verden i forandring. Der er opbrud og vi må flytte os, gøre det vi gør på en anden måde end vi plejer, for fortsat at være relevante. Dansk Design Center udgiver en artikelserie om Dansk Design i enbrydningstid, hvor de behandler emnet, og jeg har haft fornøjelsen af at bidrage til artikelserien. Læs artiklen her.
In the beginning of summer 2024 I was contaced by Betlehem Fair Trade Artisans, (BFTA) about an assignment they needed a designer for. When I heard it was a cooperation between BFTA, a Palestinian NGO I already know – and Sindyanna of Galilee, an Israeli non-profit organization led by a team of Arab and Jewish women working to create social change – I immediately accepted. This is all I long to use my designerly skill for. My summer was set.
The aim and purpose of the project was to develop a peace project. I had to workout a concept that could combine products from the two partners and also I had to design the products and the visuel profile following the concept. At our very first meeting I sugessted to build the concept around food and sharing a meal. Both partners like this starting point and this idea stayed with us and eventually became the Living Peace Meal Box. The box contains a Table Tower with two small stacking dishes, one of olive wood and one made of ceramic. The production of the dishes are to be organized by BFTA and made by artisans in the West Bank. To put into the dishes are the excellent Olive Oil and Za’atar produced by Sinydanna in North Israel. Also inside the gift box we decide to put the Balancing Peace Bird, that was already designed by FairTrade Designers in an earlier cooperation with BFTA. To emphasize the main purpose with the meal and to help participants have a meaningful and maybe hard conversation we also developed a written document, the Peace Conversations Menu. This is inspired by Samtalesaloner the result of work done by Nadja Pass og Andreas Lloyd in their citizen laboratory – Samfundslaboratoriet Borgerlyst.
The Living Peace Meal Box contains the start of a meal – the receiver and the participant are to complete the meal and make the rest of the food. The meal box is in itself ‘an invitation’ to ask friends or even somebody whom you like to reconcile with – to share a meal. The small dishes and the oil and za’ater is to start the meal, you should add food of your taste and meet up to break bread and start the Peace Conversation.
The geo political state of the world urges us to have these hard conversations – and to opt-out war. It approach might seem naive to some, to me it is more naive to go into war. Because it brings no solutions, only more hate, revanche and the ongoing dead and destruction. It has to stop now and be replaces with each of us daring to invite to brake bread and start forgiving, reconciliation and build up a new real trust.
Visiting Elias olive wood workshop, Bethlehem, June, 2023
In October 2022, the German development organization GIZ offered an assignment regarding a collaboration with Bethlehem Fair Trade Artisans. After a long and sometimes incomprehensibly complicated application process, I ended up, to my great satisfaction, landing the assignment. This also became a wonderful opportunity to gather FairTrade Designers others members; Pil Bredahl and Liselotte Risell and to invite a guest designer Katinka Sol to be the dream designteam for this project. In January 2023, I traveled to Frankfurt to do research at the Ambient Fair and personally meet and spend time with the founder of BFTA; Suzan Sahori.
After the fair, a longer series of online meetings and email dialogues started with the aimed of clarifying BFTA’s needs, the artisans’ material areas and level and, and in extension of this, – to decide the material area to work with and which methods were best suited to our collaboration.
In June 2023, it was finally time for the long-planned trip to Bethlehem at the West Bank. As the project manager, I had assembled the dreamteam of designers and the trip was planned, for us constantly to be two designers on site to facilitate the workshop, explain the design proposal we had brought, working on drawing new designs and to start and supervise the preparation of prototypes of the new designs.
BFTA Craft Village, workshop location. We brought suitcases with models and equipment to work on new drawings and models.
During the three weeks on site, we held a joint workshop for all the participating artisans and we visited the participates workshops and spent time together with the artisans to develop and discuss appropriate production methods, trying to achieve as much as possible and getting as far as possible with all prototypes in progress while on site.
Salam and Pil at the ceramic workshop together with the owner and CEO Rami.
Early on in my career I worked to learn the mechanisms of design. Today I use the power of this process to change the system from within. I am part of a necessary change. Working for a new paradigm that uses creativity, art and design to find the new paths for us humans to enter into the future more happy, healthy and in balance with our surroundings and the eco system we are a part of.
I am a pragmatic idealist. I use creativity as an approach and method to create new visions. More sustainable solutions. I do this by facilitating processes in cross disciplinary forums with collaborations between many different disciplines. Because I believe any one of us might run faster alone but will get much farther working together, and the enormous problems we’re facing collectively today cannot be solved by a single person or a single industry alone.
We need to work together. Dream together. Achieve this together.
I want to expose the faults in the current system using art and critical design. And then use the vacuum that occurs to argue for the needed change – both of design as a practice and of our lifestyle and society. I dream to initiate the transition from a society based on economic growth, to an emerging future with wider criterions of success.
Something as naive as a world for our common best.
Når vi undersøger noget, påvirker vi næsten altid det, vi undersøger. Når du stiller spørgmål kan svaret være interessant, og det kan den forandring som spørgsmålet sætter i gang, i den det får stillet spørgsmålet, også være.
I forbindelse med projekt The Time Is Now overvejer jeg om det ting, som deltagerne udvælger bliver til en interessant ‘samling’ af ting? Eller om det mest er selve spørgsmålet, der er interessant …
Når jeg interviewer bidragsyderen til projektet kan jeg godt lide pauserne, fordi de giver ro og rum til at reflektere og finde de gode svar. Pauser kan være også pinefulde, og måske alligevel også der være en måde, at få lidt mere at vide.
I’m going to spend the fall in Denmark since my stay at 18th Streets Arts Center in Santa Monica, California has again been postponed. I was granted the art residency by the Danish Art Foundation #DAF / #statenskunstfond back in 2019. First the plan was to go to 18th SAC in the fall of 2020, but the pandemic changed this. Now again I was prepared and good to go, my calendar was cleared and I was super excited, but do to the COVID situation in the US the US government maintain the very strict entry rules for foreign visitors. That leaves me in Denmark alone with hopes for a better situation in the early spring of 2022.
