Snowcrash – the exhibition

Snowcrash, one of the most talked about and obscured design events of the past two decades has finally been documented, revealing an alternative image of “Scandinavian Design” and offering a trip to the very moment when the furniture industry took the plunge into a digital world

At the end of the 1990s, Finland and Sweden moved out of a deep recession to become the driving forces behind information technology. In this climate, a group of likeminded Finnish architects and designers in 1997, decided to make an exhibition during the design week in Milan, and they called it Snowcrash. Their designs – often made in technologically advanced materials – were worlds apart from what people expected to come out of the north, and Snowcrash was quickly and unanimously hailed in the world press.

The following year, under ownership of Proventus, Snowcrash began to transform into an international design company. And the experimental approach to design that had been manifested by its founders, continued to flourish and result in objects that adressed new work- and lifestyles in a rapidly digitalised society. The company was eventually put on ice in 2003, and without coherent documentation it turned into a folk tale within the international design community.

Since 2019, Ilkka Suppanen, Finnish architect/designer and one of the founding members of Snowcrash – together with independent Swedish curator Gustaf Kjellin – have been working with Nationalmuseum in Stockholm, Sweden’s museum of art and design, to make an exhibition about Snowcrash. Nearly the entire collection that was made are shown along with never before seen videos and images, that finally will bring the Snowcrash story to a wide audience. The exhibition is supported by Proventus and the The Robert Weil Family Foundation, and is open from May 4th, 2021 – February 13th, 2022.