Two children called Ko and Puk are credited, alongside their parents, with shaping the look of one of this autumn’s biggest design exhibitions. Their mother and father, the Dutch designers Kiki van Eijk and Joost van Bleiswijk, brought the whole family into the scenography for INNER CHILD: Playing with Design, which opened at Artipelag in Stockholm on 10 October and runs until 11 April 2027. Anyone who has ever tried to tidy a playroom will recognise this as a brave way to work.
Above: Outsiders Division, Meccano Jacket, 2022. Below: Installation view INNER CHILD: Innate Artist. Playing with Design.
The show is curated by Lidewij Edelkoort and Philip Fimmano, names familiar to anyone who follows textiles closely. Edelkoort established a Textile MFA and New York Textile Month while at Parsons, and Fimmano co-founded Talking Textiles with her in 2011. They have spent years making the case that cloth deserves a wider audience. Here they have gathered 100 designers and artists around an idea that is easy to grasp: adults make livelier work when they remember how to play.
Above left: Bear and Bunny, Atelier. Above right: Atlas Fur by Pietro Franceschini. Below: Installation view INNER CHILD: Cuddling Compassion.
Photo: Jean-Baptiste Béranger.
The exhibition unfolds as a storybook in eight chapters, and textile lovers will find plenty to settle into. The curators speak of soft pieces that invite humble embraces, which is a lovely way of saying you may want to hug the cloth. Alongside them sit sculptural furniture and worlds built from colourful blocks, all linked by a return to analogue techniques and the particular satisfaction of making things by hand. Participants include Maarten Baas, Yinka Ilori, Max Lamb and Victoria Yakusha, among many others.
Above left: Alice Gavalet - Tartan, 2015 – courtesy Collection Jobbé Duval – photo © Hugo Miserey. Above right:
Fernando & Humberto Campana x Paola Lenti - Metamorfosi (Bruco), 2023 – photo © Maurizio Natta. Below: Installation view INNER CHILD: Playing with Design.
Photo: Jean-Baptiste Béranger
Most of us own a blanket that should have been retired years ago. It stays because it holds a stretch of our lives, and because the stitches remind us of a person or a place. That pull towards handmade, tactile things is what this exhibition builds on. The curators describe it as a counter-reaction to the emotional turbulence and new technologies of our times, and they see reconnecting with the inner child as a route to optimism when conflict and uncertainty fill the news.
Installation view INNER CHILD: Playing with Design - Pasting Paper.
Photo: Jean-Baptiste Béranger
Established names share the space with emerging ones, which gives the show the feel of a family gathering where the youngest guest is allowed to speak first. The exhibition borrows a line from J. M. Barrie, “I am not young enough to know everything”, and it makes a good motto for anyone who has ever unpicked a seam and begun again. Artipelag’s new museum director, Dragana Kusoffsky Maksimović, says the ambition is to foreground international voices in design and art in Sweden. Those of us who work with our hands will find a lot to recognise.
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Further Information:
INNER CHILD: Playing with Design, is on show until 11 April 2027 at Artipelag, Gustavsberg.
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Image Credits:
Lead: Anna Ray - Capture, 2020 – courtesy the Crafts Council UK – photos © Alun Callender
All further images as credited in captions.