SuoMu’s visit to the Nordic House in the Faroe Islands – inspiring and innovative results from World Saving Machines workshops are exhibited during the FRÌTT FLOG 2024 festival

• World Saving Machines workshops, 2024 February 20-22
• SuoMu Afternoon Tea, 2024 February 22 
• World Saving Machines exhibition, opening 2024 April 12 4-6 pm, open until April 15, 5 pm (produced by the Nordic House as part of Frítt Flog Children’s Festival) More info about the exhibition HERE and the festival HERE. 

”This was really fun. I loved doing something that was my own idea.”

– Student taking part to the workshop

The Finnish Design Learning Association SuoMu visited the Nordic House in Tórshavn in February 2024. We hosted the World Saving Machines workshops for local school groups, 5th and 6th graders, for three days at the magnificent Nordic House. In addition, we invited the local educators, artists and everyone interested in design learning to SuoMu’s Afternoon tea to discuss creative learning. We also had the pleasure of visiting the local Gasir school (which happens to be the largest educational institution in the islands!) and exploring the school building designed by architecture studio BIG. 

World Saving Machine -workshops 

The World Saving Machines’ first edition was done in 2018 when the kids ’ prototypes were shown in the Milan Triennale as part of the Everyday Experiments exhibition, curated by Aalto University. Back then, recycled wood and electronic waste were the main materials used to make the prototypes. For the Faroese Edition, we used mostly surplus materials like cardboard, old packaging, spruce cones and sticks, recycled wood from the Nordic House workshop and other leftover craft supplies. 

Students from Sandoy, Tórshavn, Hoyvík, and Kaldbak created over 60 machines in small groups and individually. SuoMu’s role was to help and support them to make their idea come true. The machines included ideas to purify water, offer shelter, a mirror surfaced pop-corn machine and a machine to prevent the glaciers from melting, among other innovative ideas. 

The workshop started downstairs with a quick thinking exercise and discussion about the design and what designers do, what kind of problems designers can solve. Before moving to the workshop space, we asked the students what they would want to make better in the world, and discussed some of the ideas. 

Ideation in the workshop was done by building and trying out. Central to SuoMu’s thinking is allowing mistakes and exploring by making things also by hand, which was the main method here. Lastly, the students wrote their machine’s story and name down and we took a photo of it in the miniature photography studio. 

The machines are exhibited in the Nordic House for the Frítt Flog festival between April 12-15, 2024, read more HERE. We observed how the local practices and traditions were shown in the prototypes, for example, the Faroese green roofs and fish industry could be spotted from the works. The problems children addressed varied from everyday tasks to large, global challenges. As well as in the 2018 machines, the variation in the works and ideas demonstrated that even in a relatively short time, interesting and truly outside-the-box-thinking ideas can be created and built into three-dimensional prototypes.

SuoMu Afternoon Tea 

The workshop week ended with SuoMu’s trademark “Evening Cuppa” in the cosy Systrar-cafe in the Nordic House. We had a chance to meet local students and educators and had a lovely session of conversation and sharing ideas. The staff of the Torshavn college Glasír invited us for a visit next day, and our Faroes trip ended with an excursion of this fantastic place for learning and education.

We were happy to explore a bit and see the landscape also outside Tórshavn. Big thank you to Nordic House’s producer Turið Johannessen for the collaboration, all the help and coordination during our visit and for showing us around during a windy and rainy beautiful day! Images are from Gjóv village.

SuoMu team: designers Anna Kokki, Paula Susitaival, Siri Lumme and Mari Savio.
The local team at the Nordic House: Turið Johannessen, producer. 
SuoMu’s trip was supported by the Finnish Cultural Foundation (Suomen Kulttuurirahasto) travel grant. Mari Savio’s work was supported by The Finnish Cultural Foundation (Taiteen edistämiskeskus Taike). 

Text: Anna Kokki
Photos: SuoMu team 

Homepage for the Nordic House in the Faroe Islands https://www.nlh.fo/
Nordic House Instagram @nordichouse_faroeislands https://www.instagram.com/nordichouse_faroeislands/