This is not the first time Hem has been involved in limited editions. Back in 2019 the young Swedish brand, which sells its products directly at its website, was tempted by the charm of the unique object, collaborating with the gallery Modern Design Review and with personalities like Martino Gamper, Bertjan Pot and Jenny Nordberg.
Now this liaison has been reinforced with the creation of Hem X, a platform that will exist in parallel with the mother company Hem to concentrate on collectibles. An incubator of freely explored ideas, operating directly with selected curators, artists and designer from around the world, with handmade products that never exceed a quantity of 100 pieces. “We like to think of mass production and crafts as complementary – says Petrus Palmér, founder and CEO of Hem – and we like the idea of taking both paths.”
The first collection with the new Hem X trademark has been coordinated by the Swedish interior decorating group Arranging Things, drawing on its network to select emerging Swedish artists and makers accustomed to producing one-offs in their workshops. “What we are looking for – they sat at Arranging Things – are farsighted, curious creative talents, with an eye on details… also slightly strange ones.”
So we have Rasmus Nossbring, who transforms his sculpture for the first time in the Monument series in glass: a series of fifteen pieces – five for each color – made with hot material pressed in a mold and then removed, folded, cut and carefully polished.
Lisa Reiser usually makes objects in glass, ceramic and metal, on a small scale, in Småland; for Hem X she has ‘daydreamed,’ leading to an unusual way to make a form in glass similar to a warm pink cloud, called Moln (which means cloud in Swedish). On a mold created with rings, cut by an old tube and welded, Reiser and the expert glassblower Peter Kuchinke have shaped 35 clouds, each of which has then been filled with a uniform layer of liquid silver that produces a mirror finish.
Power Plinth, by the designer Jonatan Nilsson, is made in styrofoam covered in resin and finished with a laser-cut acrylic top. In a series of 35 pieces, it functions as a small table surface or simply a decorative feature. Every piece will be signed and numbered, on view at hem.com, and will also have a distinctive configuration for differentiation from the main line of Hem products.
