“The idea for Ukurant came from us just talking about what we were all going to do after we’d finished our time at the design school; how you go from being a student of design to being a designer. It seemed to us that there were some unwritten rules and hierarchical structures in the industry that we felt needed to be challenged,” says Kamma Rosa Schytte. After puzzling around with this question for some time, the four founders realized that there weren’t any initiatives out there that provided an answer to their dilemma; so, they decided to do it themselves instead.

But how do you do that? For Ukurant, it all started with laying down ground rules: “We made a framework that served as guiding principles in the curation process: For a design to be considered ukurant, it has to be experimental in one way or another in the sense that it must be original and contribute with new perspectives to the design scene,” remarks Josefine Krabbe Munck.

Often finding themselves with a feeling of disconnection between the budding students and the furniture industry, the founders believed that a community-driven ethos was a must: “You know, it can be quite scary to walk out of school and into the offices of established manufacturers with a pitch in hand. We felt that if we could have our peers, being emerging designers from around the world standing side-by-side with one another, then there would be a sense of empowerment that would give them the courage to show their work to the world,” says Lærke Ryom and adds: “It is very much this idea of Ukurant being by young designers, for young designers striving to raise the bar for the better of emerging designers. By partnering with Muuto for this year’s exhibition, this exchange of ideas and relations can be taken to a higher level where our exhibiting designers can get a look into the world of Muuto and vice versa.”

Digging into these considerations or sense of insecurities that young designers may have when presenting their work to seasoned actors in the design industry, Kasper Kyster believes that there is value to be found in preserving the uniquely youthful outlook that aspiring designers have: “The naivety and curiosity of young designers is an element that we find to be incredibly important to both protect and amplify. What we mean by this is that they should be uncompromising in their work and dare to be that very thing and not what they think that the industry wants.”

Being a project that collaborates with new photographers, graphic designers and spatial architects each year, it seems apparent that the exchange of ideas and driving each other forward lies at the heart of Ukurant.

On that, Schytte notes: “We felt that there was a need to emphasize the value of cross-disciplinary collaboration in the industry. During our time at the design school, we experienced a fruitful network between students of different disciplines and believe that the concept of a strong community is something that can turn the output by young creatives into something even more impactful.”