Animated furniture dots Copenhagen Contemporary’s new in-house café

Staying true to their vision of showcasing and promoting designs and artworks by both renowned and upcoming designers and artists in the spaces of their gallery, Copenhagen Contemporary recently unveiled café Connie Connie in their premises. Instead of populating the café with solely utilitarian furniture items, the gallery took this opportunity to showcase the works of several national and international creatives in a space that will now regularly be occupied by visitors. Born out of the collaboration between the gallery, multidisciplinary studio, Tableau and Australian designer Ari Prasetya, the café now houses furniture pieces designed by 25 artists.

Based in Copenhagen, Denmark, Copenhagen Contemporary regularly hosts creatives from within and without the country. Founded in 2016, the art gallery is housed in an expansive hall which was formerly a welding facility and occupies an area of 7000 square metres. It is characterised by high ceilings that are suitable for holding both small and large art installations, as well as for hosting performance art and video installations. Touted as one of the largest exhibition venues in all of Scandinavia, the gallery showcases contemporary artworks and designs and is a lively hub for creatives and audiences alike. It organises art talks, walks, workshops, concerts and exhibitions for visitors. Some of the prominent personalities whose works have been showcased in the gallery include Yoko Ono, Superflux, Bruce Nauman and Doug Aitken amongst others.

By populating the Connie Connie café with quirky and whimsical furniture pieces designed by the likes of Among Other Things, Anne Brandhøj, Arnaud Eubelen, Laurids Gallée, and Ukurant, amongst others, the space ceases to be a mundane spot that can only be enlivened through food and conversations. Instead, each furniture piece occupies its own space and infuses a breath of fresh air into the café, while also serving as subtle showcases and conversation starters. The natural wood furniture pieces in the café stand out against the muted green-and-white walls of the café, thus, making sure that no space of piece overpowers the others. Made using discarded and leftover wood from Dinesen, a Danish flooring brand, the seats, benches and chairs also serve as examples of utilising sustainable practices to create innovative and unique products. Each piece in the café carries the essence of its maker, is vibrantly distinctive from all other pieces and dots the space like animated characters with unique identities.

The overall design of the gallery was envisioned and implemented by Danish multidisciplinary firm, Tableau. The design studio is known to produce unique works in the fields of set design, floral installations, spatial design and product design . Apart from designing the spaces of the small café, the firm also dabbled with product design to create objects that could inhabit and add to the already long inventory of unique seating at the café. Another designer, who was involved in the curatorial process of creating Connie Connie, is Australian designer, Ari Prasetya. Based in Denmark, Prasetya specialises in furniture, object and spatial design. He was entrusted with the role of creating several furniture pieces in the café, while also working with Tableau on the spatial design of the café. All the furniture pieces in the café have also been made available by the gallery for purchase, thus transforming it into an art collector’s haven.