⟶ Could you introduce yourself and tell us a bit about your creative journey?

I grew up in an environment where problems were solved using whatever was available. My grandfather was a construction foreman, my other grandfather a farmer, and my father a car mechanic.

There was rarely, if ever, any thought given to aesthetics, but the starting point was always that it had to work and last. In combination, my mother, who was a recreational pedagogue, encouraged various creative crafts, which for me often meant spending a lot of time drawing.

I wasn’t spoiled with culture at home, but that made me incredibly curious and led me, together with friends, to dive deep into everything that crossed my path—art, music, film, fashion, and design.

This was long before the internet, so it was all about renting videotapes, going to concerts and festivals, reading various magazines, and taking the Swebus to Stockholm to dig through record bins and visit exhibitions. A lot of hard work back then, haha, but so much fun.

Could you describe your current creative projects or initiatives? What are you most passionate about in your creative work?Where did your creative journey begin, and how has your background influenced your work?

Hard to pinpoint where and when it all began, but in my teenage years, magazines like i-D, POP/Bibel, and Wallpaper had a huge impact on me. In the absence of cultural institutions in my small hometown, magazines became an essential ingredient. I also remember when Julian Schnabel’s film about Jean-Michel Basquiat came out in 1996—it left a big impression on me.

I had very little understanding of how growing up without cultural or academic influences shaped my approach to culture until I moved to Stockholm and met peers who had a more artistic or academic upbringing. It became clear that my homemade entry point into the cultural world was completely different from the one taught in art schools. Even the language was different—there was a whole other lingo that I neither understood nor spoke, let alone wrote.

At first, I had a complex about my lack of formal knowledge and tried to compensate by delving even deeper into learning. Today, I’m very proud and grateful for my unconventional path. I think it has given me a much more nuanced perspective compared to the more traditional route.

Could you describe your current creative projects or initiatives? What are you most passionate about in your creative work?

I am deeply interested in pushing boundaries, both in terms of what is considered possible within the furniture industry and from a material perspective—perhaps most prominently in my artistic practice.

What do you consider your creative expertise, and how did you develop it over time?

I believe I possess the ability to navigate both the industrial production landscape and the academic side of our industry. In my case, I’ve developed this skill slowly and empirically through a process of trial and error. I am also obsessively interested in contemporary culture and do my best to keep up with current trends and expressions.

The design industry has always been heavily divided between those who design and those who produce. I struggle to see the benefits of this division and have always worked to bring the two sides closer together.

This divide starts early, even within academia.

What are some of the challenges you've encountered in your creative career, and how do you overcome them?

If we’re talking about the furniture industry, I’d say it’s a pretty tough scene to work in. There are a lot of sharp elbows and people willing to step over others to succeed.

As a young and inexperienced designer, it’s important to understand what competition can do to people. I had no clue about that when I started my first furniture company in 1999, and honestly, if I had known more, I doubt I would have gotten into the game.

Today, the situation is completely different. For one, I’m on the production side, which gives me a completely different position compared to when I was a freelance designer. And secondly, I couldn’t care less about what people in the industry think of me.

I didn’t start VERK to make friends in the design world. VERK is built on something much bigger than that—we want to contribute to creating sustainable change.

Who or what inspires your creative process, and how do you incorporate those inspirations into your work?

People who create amazing but completely unnecessary things from an unselfish perspective, no matter what it happens to be—I find that incredibly inspiring. You can clearly see when a project is born from the heart, driven by a burning passion, versus when it’s created as a way to elevate oneself.

I think about projects like Nimis or Ferdinand Cheval, the French postman who spent 33 years building a palace out of stones he collected during his route. Those kinds of crazy endeavors fascinate me.

@verk.se

@studio_simonanund