IKEA: DEMOCRACY ON SALE?
Thursday, April 7
10:45 – 11:45am
80 Fifth Ave, Room 802
Sara Kristoffersson
Konstfack University College of Arts, Crafts and Design, Sweden
Ikea’s store – a big blue box with an oversized yellow logotype – all around the world makes one think of Sweden. No other company aside from Ikea has promoted the concept of Scandinavian design so widely. The brand has a distinct Swedish identity, and is launched as a company with a “social mission” and “democratic design”. The talk presents how Ikea created these symbolic links to Sweden in the 1980s and 1990s, with a focus on the efficacy of narratives and in the light of “nation branding”. For a long time Ikea made use of the conception of Sweden. Today the Swedish government employs Ikea when branding the nation.
