• Interview with Filippa Burenstam Linder, Creative Director Mateus

    Written by Yasmine Mubarak

    Filippa Burenstam Linder is the creative director of the porcelain company Mateus, a 30 years old brand with inspiration from Swedish design and Portuguese craftsmanship. Together with her mother Teresa Mateus Lundahl (who founded the company), they are a driving force in the porcelain industry. They are dedicated in creating colorful tables around the world, with a strong inspiration taken from the fashion world, but also love for family gatherings. Odalisque had a quick talk with the Creative Director, to ask a few questions for the spring and summer festivities.

    Tell me about your inspiration and love for Mateus.
    Mateus is truly part of my DNA. My mother founded the company when I was just seven years old, so it’s deeply woven into my childhood. I have so many memories of accompanying her to the factories and helping pack orders in our basement, which at the time served as our warehouse. When I was nine, I gave her a drawing of a plate for her birthday. She loved the idea and decided to produce it, with a few tweaks, of course. That became my very first design for Mateus.

    What are your inspirations for the brand, currently and for the future?
    What inspires me most is our customers. I feel incredibly proud when I meet someone who’s been collecting Mateus for years, adding new pieces over time - or when someone inherits pieces and wants to continue building their own collection. That kind of loyalty and connection to the brand is both humbling and motivating.

    How did your own passion for design start?
    I think I was born into it! Design has always been a part of my life. Even as a child, I was constantly rearranging my room - probably every other week. I’ve always had a love for aesthetics and how they shape our surroundings.

    The Mateus brand is introduced as Swedish Design meets Portuguese craftsmanship, tell me a bit more about that merge. My mother was born and raised in Lisbon and moved to Sweden when she met my father, so Portugal has always been close to our hearts. The country has a rich heritage in ceramics, and from the start, it made perfect sense to bring together Portuguese craftsmanship with the simplicity and elegance of Swedish design. That combination defines Mateus.

    What are your hopes for people buying Mateus items?
    That they’ll love and cherish them for many years. Our collection is extensive, we have around 700 unique items, and we rarely discontinue products. That means customers can start a collection and continue to build on it over time, knowing they can always find complementary pieces.

    What do spring/summer 2025 look like for you personally?
    Fashion-wise, I’m a denim girl - I love a good Canadian tuxedo. When it comes to table settings, I’m all about color. I prefer bold tones like blue, red, and yellow over pastels. For me, vibrant colors really bring a table to life.

    Last question, tell me about your latest collaboration with Sam Baron. How did it start, how did you found each other? 
    We first met in 2017, when we invited Sam and Costas to design a collection for our 25th anniversary. Since then, we have stayed in touch, thanks in part to Sam’s residency in Portugal and our encounters at international design fairs. Coincidentally, my mother and Sam also goes to the same tea shop in Lisbon! When we decided to incorporate patterns in a modern and intriguing way, Sam was the natural choice. Read Odalisque's interview with Sam Baron here.

    .Images: Mateus

  • photography Horst P. Horst courtesy of V&A Press Office

    Cartier’s New V&A Exhibition is a World-Encompassing Celebration of Craft

    Written by Maya Avram by Nicole Miller

    It’s been nearly 30 years since Cartier has had its own dedicated exhibition in London — a surprising fact considering the English capital is one of the jeweller’s three foundational cities, along with Paris and New York. And so the opening of Cartier’s titular show at the Victoria and Albert Museum last week marked a homecoming, of sorts. “The V&A and Cartier were established only five years apart,” said Dr Tristran Hunt, the museum’s director, at a press view last week. “[Founder] Louis-François Cartier, his three grandsons and the founders of this museum all shared an ambition to elevate craftsmanship and design to the realm of art, transcending mere utility for enduring artistic legacy.” This, Dr Hunt notes, was made possible by prioritising transatlantic partnerships.

    Curated in partnership with Cartier (and the generous support of the Royal Family, who contributed pieces from their private collection), the space showcases 350 beguiling pieces that tell a story of cultural exchange, innovation and of active participation in — rather than merely observation of — societal trends. From the Garland-style Scroll Tiara, commissioned in 1902 and worn for the coronation of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, and later donned by Rihanna on the cover of W magazine in 2016, to the Tank watch originally owned by Jackie Kennedy and later acquired by Kim Kardashian, the collection weaves together eras, empires, and individuals to humanise Cartier’s storied history and underscore its enduring cultural relevance.

    The Cartier brothers’ global vision drove them to forge meaningful relationships with royals, socialites, thought-leaders and other influential figures from around the world throughout the early 20th century, crystallising the entrepreneurial spirit that underpins the brand’s ethos to this day. These connections fostered the kind of cultural exchanges that shaped the Maison’s design process, which is progressive yet grounded in the artistic heritage of its discerning clientele.

    Those values allow Cartier to evolve in step with society, as asserts the brand’s motto: “Always innovate, never imitate.” It reflects the jeweller’s deep-rooted respect for international culture and its celebration of the rich artistic heritage of places like Egypt, India and China. These have inspired its most iconic geometric, colourful and boldly modern styles — most notably, the Art Deco works, shown here in all their glittering glory.

    “One thing that we are very proud to have done in this exhibition,” said Rachel Garrahan, co-curator of the exhibition alongside Helen Molesworth, “is leading a fil rouge of London through the story of Cartier, where we see highlights that include jewels from the Royal Family.” From coronation tiaras from the 1930s (never as many made before or since by the brand) to Tank watches from Swinging Sixties London, Cartier’s savoir-faire has shaped British culture in every turn.

    This is a display of brilliance, both literal and metaphorical. 10 years in the making, the show offers insight and context for the influential power that is Cartier. Each piece reflects not only craftsmanship, but the lives and moments that made it matter, bringing Cartier’s legacy into sharp, human focus.

    The exhibition Cartier runs at V&A South Kensington from 12 April 2025 – 16 November 2025.
     

    Link: 
    Tickets available at vam.ac.uk/exhibitions/cartier
    images courtesy of V&A Press Office
  • The Waldorf Project / FUTURO - X (Thailand, 2019)
    all images courtesy of Waldorf Project

    Virtual Serenity – Engineering Empathy

    Written by Dante Grossfeld by Nicole Miller

    In 2012, during one of his Waldorf Project performance art pieces in London (where all their performances except for the 2018 Stockholm performance, 2019 Thailand performance, and 2019 Lufthansa performance have taken place), founder Sean Rogg did something remarkable: he successfully manufactured empathy in a group of 40 people. By using sight, sound and touch to subject the participants of his experiment to anxiety and, as he puts it, “trauma,” followed by a state of euphoria, he managed to create a strong emotional bond between them.

    Many began to weep, others held hands. This went on for almost exactly eight minutes, before the mood abruptly changed and things “went back to normal.” The next time he performed the experiment, the same thing happened again, and it went on for eight minutes. As well as the next after that. The participants all developed a close emotional bond stemming from shared trauma and euphoria, but it never lasted more than eight minutes.

    Since then, Rogg’s goal has been to develop a method of engineering empathy on a larger scale, with more people and for a longer period of time. His next experiment to this end, Virtual Serenity, will be held at Sergel Hub in Stockholm on the 26th and 27th of April, and will incorporate VR technology, a tool which Rogg believes will open up many new possibilities.

    Upon entering the Sergel Hub venue, located in the heart of Stockholm, right around the corner from Sergels Torg, I am greeted by a massive industrial interior, reminiscent of a renovated warehouse. Usually this space is reserved for conferences, but with this project, as Rogg explains, Sergel Hub will make its debut into the world of art.

    On a bar counter along one side of the room lies a collection of 300 VR headsets. Rogg explains that these will all be linked together through a series of complex systems in order to create a network of connection throughout the room, where participants will be seated in groups of four.

    In previous experiments, Rogg has employed immersive theater, contemporary dance, and molecular gastronomy in order to design an experience, but this time VR is his tool of choice. “If you boil it right down, it’s about human connection. The technology is just a tool to connect. So it’s not about having a VR experience, it’s about connection,” he says.

    The use of VR technology with biometric sensors will allow the experience to be personalized for each person, adapting in order to elicit the desired emotional response. Each person will go on a unique journey, but, if everything goes according to plan, it will be one that draws them all closer to their group mates and to every other person in the room.

     

    Link: 
    Tickets are up for sale at https://billetto.se/e/waldorf-project-presents-virtual-serenity-biljetter-1175074
    The Waldorf Project / FUTURO - X (Thailand, 2019)
    The Waldorf Project / Virtual Serenity Test (Berlin, 2024)

    The Waldorf Project / FUTURO - X (Thailand, 2019)

    all images courtesy of Waldorf Project

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