Marianne Johnstad-Møller is a textile artist with a strong focus on materials, craft, tradition and innovation. She uses colourful threads, yarn, discarded leftovers and plaster to create unique pieces. Her work is inspired by contrasts like the transition between light and darkness, also between what is hidden for the eye but felt in the deeper layers. She hand-dyes all her knitted pieces and loves to immerse herself in an experimenting dialogue with materials, colours and technique. She reworks discarded and damaged pieces of knitting from other projects, creating new and often transparent art pieces. Her background in theatre – creating costumes – flows like a poetic thread through her interpretations of minor theatrical personalities.

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Copenhagen celebrates the legacy of fairy tale author Hans Christian Andersen, be it with his statue in the city centre or the Little Mermaid off the city coast. Our itinerary will take you on a journey to encounter goldsmiths, paper sculptors, and porcelain makers, whose jewellery and sculptures mimic the world created by Andersen and immerse you in his tales.

Copenhagen: from the pages of a fairy tale

The fairy tales of writer Hans Christian Andersen paint an enchanting picture of his hometown Copenhagen. Follow our itinerary to discover craftspeople, whose magical creations seem to have come to life from the pages of Andersen’s stories.

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This round and open textile vessel is in reddish brown with a little handle. The knit is transparent and damaged. The bottom of the object is solid dark brown, and the original texture and grey colour of the yarn appears on the inside.

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Made in hairpin lace crochet, this textile object is shaped as a jug, with hairpin lace panels in grey, winter-white and pale green. The texture is soft and a bit hairy.

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This sculptural lamp, constructed in knit, is inspired by jellyfish. It is made of layers of transparent knit in white and a soft yellow-brown tone with edges and lines in a soft brown yarn with opacity. Each piece of knit is rolling up and around itself. It is the golden-brown little sister to the larger lamp.

Jellyfish lamp No. 13

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Five hanging sculptural objects in dark brown shades made of damaged and discarded pieces of knit. Plaster, colour and glue were added to create a texture and expression that is both delicate and raw, stiff and soft, transparent and opaque.

Transformation

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This hanging sculpture in shades of maroon, burgundy and greyish maroon is made in delicate pieces of transparent and hand-dyed knit formed as unregular bobbles with several layers.

State of change, state of stillness

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Textile artist and weaver Pia Jensen grew up in an artistic home in Copenhagen and made her first textile pieces as a teenager. Sewing, dyeing, knitting and drawing have always been an integrated and natural part of her world. A world she entered professionally at the age of 20 and has dedicated herself to for the past four decades. Professional skills, craftsmanship and experience – coupled with her keen aesthetic sense – results in handwoven rugs, throws and scarves combined with site-specific and decorative projects. Pia Jensen has vast experience and a distinct poetic sense that allows her to see the world through a textile lens. A world where attention to detail and carefully designed colourways imbue her woven pieces with qualities of depth and history. Pia is a textile storyteller, inspired by her travels to exotic destinations, that often provide clues to the exciting patterns, colours and ways of living that fascinate and inspire her.

Jensen, Pia

Storytelling with patterns

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Copenhagen-based weaver Helle Rude Trolle graduated in Textile Design and Weaving from Kolding School of Design and founded her own workshop in 2001. Her work is based on a love of craftsmanship and a fascination for constructing structures, often in several layers and dimensions. “Working with fibres allows you to experiment, play, explore and develop new expressions,” she says. “If you can weave you can make your own special fabric with unique properties, and that is what fascinates me. I will always try to make textiles telling their own story about colour and material.” She explores the opportunities different materials possess, and through her technical skills she develops contemporary textiles. In the summer, Helle opens up her studio on the small Island of Samsø, where she organises workshops dedicated to botanical dyeing.

TJ --> works on both analogue and digital looms

Rude Trolle, Helle

Inspired by the sky

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Iben Birch Bech has worked with textiles for as long as she can remember. Her entire family either sewed, knitted or made other forms of handicraft that inspired her to pursue a professional career in the field of textiles that felt so close to home. Growing up on the island of Bornholm, the rocky landscape is part of her aesthetic DNA, and after 17 years away, she moved back to Bornholm where she now represents the vast amount of craft artists on the island – named World Craft Region in 2018. Iben creates both art pieces and decorative or wearable objects. Her constant dialogue between digital and analogue, and functional and artistic creations sharpens her eye and intuition. Iben sells her handmade pieces in her studio shop in Tejn on Bornholm.

TJ --> combines traditional textile dyeing with digital printing.

Bech, Iben Birch

Inspired by island landscapes

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Karin Carlander is a Danish contemporary weaver and textile artist, who reinterprets traditional Nordic crafts and the use of textiles for practical everyday purposes. Karin learned the craft of tapestry weaving at the age of 19, at French weaver Jacqueline de la Baume Dürrbach’s studio in Provence. In 1987 she graduated as a textile designer with a major in weaving from what is now known as the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, School of Design. During this time she developed a lifelong interest and respect for Japanese design and craftsmanship, and she spent three months studying in Japan. In 1988, Karin established her own studio. She has spent the following decades creating and exhibiting one-off handwoven textiles and creating textile designs for several established companies, before starting her own brand, Textile No. in 2013.

Carlander, Karin

Reinterpreting a Nordic tradition

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Your authorizations

Developed in partnership with Fondazione Cologni dei Mestieri d’Arte and made possible by the support of Cartier, Homo Faber in Città gives you a rare chance to visit over 70 artisan workshops. The project is developed in collaboration with Fondazione Giorgio Cini, Confartigianato Imprese Venezia, CNA Venezia, Consorzio Promovetro Murano, The Venice Glass Week and Venezia da Vivere.

Our Partners

Step inside the workshops and ateliers to learn the secrets of local master artisans and manufacturers

Try your hand at different crafts with an authentic experience

Marvel at examples of fine craftsmanship by doing our itineraries

This september, the second edition of Homo Faber in Città invites visitors to step off the beaten track and discover the artisanal addresses where Venetian craftspeople create objects of exquisite beauty. A rare opportunity to witness Venice’s master artisans and young talents demonstrating their crafts and presenting the tools, materials and skills involved in contemporary Venetian craftsmanship.

Enrich your experience beyond Homo Faber 2024: The Journey of Life

Account and data history

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Homo Faber Guide is an online portal dedicated to contemporary craftsmanship, showcasing artisans, ateliers, museums, galleries, shops and experiences. Create your user account for access to exclusive features on Homo Faber Guide: save your preferred pages, hear about hot topics first, leave recommendations for your favourite artisans and much more.

Create your account

Although the Michelangelo Foundation researches the talents for its projects autonomously, collaboration with our ambassadors is fundamental. Over 120 associations, schools and institutions allow us to map the continents for craftsmanship and to have partners in each country who share our vision and goals. In addition, we have asked well-known personalities in the craft, design and art world to be our ambassadors in the cities where they live, so that their recommendations can offer a unique insight into craftsmanship in the major cities of Europe and beyond.

Who are our ambassadors?

Download our free Homo Faber Guide app (iOS and Android) to discover artisans, museums, galleries, shops, and experiences by location. Search Homo Faber on the App store on your mobile device.

Find craftsmanship destinations on the go

Discover the addresses of esteemed manufacturers, well known for producing high quality objects across a wide variety of crafts. Read their stories and find out where you can shop their contemporary pieces, see their archive collections and even in some cases visit their workshops. Find exceptional ateliers where artisans collaborate creatively to create fine pieces of craftsmanship. Reach out to them to commission something special.

Ateliers & Manufacturers

All the artisans and small workshops featured in Homo Faber Guide have been carefully researched and selected. They are presented and narrated through a selection of images and an interview, which allows readers to immerse themselves in the universe of these makers who exemplify excellence in their individual fields or are promising talents of the future. Find masters and rising stars who share the same passion and determination, and whose workshops are ready to share their secrets with visitors.

A selection of the best artisans

Are you eager to discover a city through craftsmanship? Do you wish to spend a few hours visiting an applied arts museum or attending a course on a craft with one of the masters featured in Homo Faber Guide? Browse the section dedicated to experiences and find your next adventure.

Experiences

An expert artisan is an accomplished artisan who has been in activity for more than ten years. He or she may also be engaged in passing on their knowledge to the next generations, but they have been doing so for less than seven years. Beyond this, they will become a Master artisan.

Who is an Expert artisan?

Homo Faber Guide provides you with a selection of the best addresses across Europe and further afield, where you will be able to discover and purchase exceptional objects, some of which are created by artisans featured in Homo Faber Guide.

Galleries

Homo Faber Guide is an online platform dedicated to craftsmanship that allows you to discover artisans and their masterpieces; explore museums, visit galleries and shops selling unique objects; enjoy experiences in cities across Europe and beyond.

Homo Faber Guide is a signature project developed by the Michelangelo Foundation for Creativity and Craftsmanship, an international non-profit organisation based in Geneva, Switzerland, which was set up in 2016 thanks to the intuition of Franco Cologni and Johann Rupert. The Michelangelo Foundation’s mission is to celebrate and preserve master craftsmanship, and for this reason it has created a map of the most significant representatives in this field, with the aim of connecting all its protagonists: artisans, designers, gallery owners, art curators, collectors and enthusiasts of high-quality handmade pieces.

About the Guide

Are you an artisan, atelier or manufacturer? Would you like to be featured in Homo Faber Guide? The Michelangelo Foundation encourages self-assessment initiatives and is pleased to evaluate new members to appear on the Guide or in other projects. Thanks to the Master’s Touch Evaluation Tool, every artisan can send their application: register and access a questionnaire to see if you fulfill the 11 criteria for excellence that stand behind all the activities of the Michelangelo Foundation. If your answers reach the minimum requirement, your application will be brought to our attention; if, on the contrary, you should score below the minimum requirement, we will give you some points for improvement, in the hope that you may participate in future initiatives of the Michelangelo Foundation.

Join the Homo Faber Guide!

Our artisan labels

A master artisan is an accomplished artisan who has been in activity for more than ten years, and who has also been engaged in passing on his or her expertise to the younger generations for more than seven years. This is in keeping with one of the key values of the Michelangelo Foundation: the transmission of knowledge in craftsmanship.

Who is a Master artisan?

Find museums handpicked for their links to contemporary craftsmanship and the exquisite collections they have on display. In each city, discover a museum of interest and organise your visit. From Italian museums displaying coral collections, glass pieces and ceramics to decorative art museums in Russia and Greece, marvel at the variety of museums exhibiting masterpieces, showcasing techniques and recounting histories.

Museums

A rising star is an artisan who has been active for less than ten years, and who is capable of expressing his or her craft with competence, creativity and originality. Whether self-taught or trained, the rising star represents the future of craftsmanship, in creativity, concerns and approaches.

Who is a Rising star?

The artisans featured in Homo Faber Guide have been selected through a meticulous assessment process based on the 11 criteria for excellence, identified by Alberto Cavalli, Executive Director of the Michelangelo Foundation, in the volume The Master’s Touch, written with researchers Giuditta Comerci and Giovanna Marchello. The members of the Michelangelo Foundation’s network who have been invited to participate in sourcing artisans for the Guide use an evaluation tool based on these criteria. In this way, they can identify the most suitable artisans to include in the project.

Simple rules for a transparent selection

In which city does the artisan work?

In which country does the artisan practise?

What craft does the artisan practise?

What is the artisan’s Instagram page?

What is the name of the artisan you are recommending?

Does the artisan have a website?

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