The designer’s new role – from form-giver to social actor
The anniversary is marked with a clear focus on what lies ahead. Because while design history is rich in form, function and aesthetics, the present is shaped by new demands such as sustainability, responsibility and complexity. The question is no longer just what designers create, but what role they play in society.
A renewed focus on making
Among the day’s speakers was Karen Grøn, Museum Director at Trapholt, and she is in no doubt. There is a need for a renewed focus on hands-on making if society is to be prepared for a more sustainable future. More people need experience of creating things themselves, not just consuming them.
- In a time marked by automation and efficiency, creative practices become a counterforce that connects people, materials and meaning. When we create in direct contact with materials, we build respect for the world and an understanding of limits, and that in itself is an ethical experience. Of course we need professionals, but we also need the wider population to have this presence in life through amateur creative practices – not so much for the finished product, but for the act of making and being present in the world.
For Karen Grøn, craft is not just about technique, but about practice and a way of seeing the world. Working with materials creates an understanding of time, quality and responsibility, and that is precisely why craft holds an ethical potential that society needs to rediscover. At the same time, she points out that designers, craftspeople and artists play a particular role in this development.
- As a professional craftsperson, you also carry a responsibility. Not only for your own work, but for sharing your knowledge – whether through teaching or by inspiring others when you create and show virtuosic work, said Karen Grøn.
From her perspective, this renewed focus on making is not a niche concern for a few, but a broader societal task. When more people are given the opportunity to work with materials and processes, both their understanding of the world and their ability to take responsibility for it are strengthened. Here, the role of the craftsperson is expanded from being purely a maker of objects to an active communicator of a practice and a way of being in the world.
“In a time marked by automation and efficiency, creative practices become a counterforce that connects people, materials and meaning,” said Karen Grøn, Museum Director at Trapholt, at the seminar.
“It makes good sense that the seminar was held at the school this time, given the theme ‘The designer’s new role – towards a sustainable future’. This is where future designers are educated, and at the same time the school provides direct access to membership of the association for both students and graduates. The association has a strong focus on education for both designers and craftspeople, and that is why it is important that we work together on shared agendas, so we stand stronger politically.”
The workshop in close connection with the outside world
While Karen Grøn’s view of the future role of the craftsperson is rooted in hands-on work and the ethical responsibility that comes with it, another of the day’s speakers, Morten Krogh Petersen, Associate Professor of Sustainability at Kolding School of Design, sees it being shaped through education’s close connection to the world and the systems that design is part of.
Morten Krogh Petersen points to what aesthetics and craft actually do in the world as the key issue. Design education is not only about teaching students form and function, but about the practices and systems that design helps to create. In his talk, he said, among other things:
- Design shapes practices – and therefore also society. That’s why the role of the designer today is not just about how we design, but about what it makes sense to bring into the world.
At Kolding School of Design, the world outside the school is not a case study, but a prerequisite for teaching. Collaboration with companies, public institutions, organisations and citizens is built into the curriculum, precisely because designers today need to be able to navigate complex realities with many stakeholders and conflicting interests.
- Today, we don’t design isolated solutions. We often design within ultra-complex projects where what may be a solution for one actor is a problem for another. That places completely new demands on the designer’s understanding of connections, contexts and consequences, explained Morten Krogh Petersen, stressing that designers do not just refine individual products, but also the systems and relationships that design becomes part of.
The designer of the future must not only be able to shape form, but also take a position, work across disciplines and engage with the social and political consequences of what is brought into the world.
Karen Grøn and Morten Krogh Petersen share the understanding that craft and design today extend far beyond form-giving – and that the designer of the future must see themselves as an active co-creator of society, communities and sustainable ways of living.
“Design shapes practices – and therefore also society. That’s why the role of the designer today is not just about how we design, but about what it makes sense to bring into the world,” said Morten Krogh Petersen, Associate Professor of Sustainability and Design at Kolding School of Design.
Speakers and exhibitors
In addition to presentations by Karen Grøn, Museum Director at Trapholt, and Morten Krogh Petersen, Associate Professor at Kolding School of Design, silversmith Lone Løvschal, winner of the Biennale Prize 2025, and textile designer Emilie Palle Holm spoke about their works at the Biennial for Craft & Design, which can be experienced at Glas – Museum of Glass Art in Ebeltoft until 22 February 2026.
Graduate from Kolding School of Design Emilie Palle Holm was among the day’s speakers and is also exhibiting at the Biennial for Craft & Design. Emilie Palle Holm was nominated for the Biennale Prize 2025 for her work ‘WOVEN VOXEL’. The prize committee describes it as “a fascinating three-dimensional work in jacquard weaving. She has not only transformed a surface into form. She has created a unique and singular work that engages the senses and creates spatial experiences. Wherever we stand, both the craft-based and the aesthetic experience feel new, balancing between the controlled and a more dissolved formal language, which becomes a spatial universe of rhythmically undulating sequences of colour compositions and patterns. Emilie Palle Holm deserves recognition for her original expression, which emerges in the interplay between the machine’s digital possibilities and classical craftsmanship.”
