Hella Jongerius has created a line of beautiful wall-hangings for the 2009 IKEA PS collection. Here’s Pelle, the rabbit, hanging in my upstairs hallway. Also available are Gullspira (the goat) and Mikkel (the fox).
From Hella’s website:
Hella Jongerius created wallhangings for the IKEA-Unicef programme, which helps women in India to start up small sewing businesses and enables their children to go to school. Sources of inspiration are the animals that feature in Swedish fairy tales. In the production process small scale craft production in India is combined with large scale industrial production by IKEA, while the images refer to the local roots of this global company.
The result consists of textiles of which not only IKEA and Jongerius will benefit, but also the craftswomen who left their traces in the making.
The textiles are made with a variety of materials and techniques, which gives the end result a rich look. The used materials are a mix of woolen felt, a woven woolen dobby and printed cotton. A bright colored polyester band with button holes at the top of the work gives a sturdy accent and serves to attach it to the wall. The parts are stitched together and embroidered by hand. The combination of colors, print and embroidered accents give each of the three designs an individual character.
Each wallhanging is made from beginning to end by one woman. On the back of the work is a label with the names of IKEA, Hella Jongerius and the embroidered name of the woman who made it.
Why a goat, a fox and a rabbit?
“They refer in an abstract way to animals featured in Swedish fairy tales. Animals have already been featured in much of my earlier work; they trigger first and foremost the imagination. An animal has the power to be familiar; expressing moods comparable to the moods of human beings, and at the same time an animal remains puzzling.”
An early sketch for the 2009 IKEA PS collection
The wallhangings join Hella’s previous work for the IKEA PS line, four Jonsberg vases introduced in 2005. They are still available for sale—and I own all four!
23 Comments
I love it! Especially because I know if I saw this in a store it would remind me of you.
I’m not so sure about the wall hanging, but I really love the vases and have been contemplating purchasing one. Since you have all 4, I was wondering which one is your fav?
Ooh the wall hanging’s lovely! And I love the last vase in that line up. Ikea’s got some nice new stuff it seems.
Oh my, I love that wall hanging! I hope they are available in Aus too!
this is from ikea?! i seriously love that place. glad to have doorsixteen back! ; )
Wow! I love the vases. There very beautiful. It’s also artistic. I like the black one and the white one. Nice job!
This is probably going to make me sound like I’m mental but, when I first looked at that wall hanging, I had myself CONVINCED it was a Millennium Falcon. I need sleep.
xoxoox
Hella definitely is one of our favorite Dutch export products! 😉 I love the vases as well, though I only have the pink one. They’re slightly big for a small apartment, but very beautiful and after a few years (and seeing them basically everywhere) they still don’t bore me yet.
That’s a really cool wall hanging!
I was just at the IKEA website, thinking that I really need to get over there. Too bad it’s about 150 miles away. I’m driving right past it on Thursday, but I will be with people who absolutely will not be interested in stopping. Borrrriiiing.
Wow, it’s amazing! Love the composition and colours, and the story behind each one is fascinating 🙂
oh, i love the bunny wall hanging! i could only find “mikkel” on ikea.com… either i overlooked “pelle” or it’s only in-stores. oh well. oh, and my town had an annual festival, and i recalled from one of your older posts about fried oreos… and i got some! you are right, they weren’t quite as good as i was expecting. but i figured since i was born/raised in the south (and everything here is fried) i would give it a shot. thought id share this with you since i was reminded of your post when i purchased my fried oreos. =)
I love those vases. Specially the white one!
the vases are simply Gorgeous!!
Michelle: I love that you thought of me when you had fried Oreos. 🙂 I had them again this year, too. They were actually better than last time!
The wall hangings are a little too modern for my space, but I love the little vases 🙂
I think I may need to haul my butt out to my local Ikea this weekend
Down Pillow: The wall hangings are actually quite traditional and folk-art-ish in nature; I wouldn’t describe them as being particularly “modern” at all.
Also, the vases are HUGE! Definitely not little. 🙂
the wall hangings are amazing and i love the folk-art look of them.
want the terra cotta looking vase!
also, *snort* millenium falcon. love you, cuppy!
xoxo
I love the vases, I have only the white one, but if I had enough space I would probably buy all of them too.
In order to find these kinds of things it helps to have some prior knowledge of the artists, and it’s obvious that you do. Just the other day I happened to see some of Hella Jongerius’ work at the Cooper-Hewitt made of a natural type of latex she extracted from trees in Mexico… Having seen her vases at your house made it all the more interesting to me.
Coincidentally I have found on the United Kingdom Ikea Website a different design from the PS design Mikkel series.. And now I’m thinking about to buy it. Thanks to your post I have taken any note of this design.
Funny, every-time I visit your very inspiring blog, I notice we have many of the same things in our homes … prints, lights and chairs and yet our homes look so completely different! greetings from Kuala Lumpur, irene
Hi Anna,
What did you use to hang your Pelle with? I was poking around IKEA, but they just used some sort of rigged-up dowel. I tried nails, but they looked bad. I can’t make out what you did in your picture.
Thank you,
Tara