Meet the team of passionate curators behind ReThink, whose expertise and keen eye for design are at the heart of these projects. Guiding and mentoring our participants, they join us in celebrating creativity, exploring the versatility of textiles, and fostering a reflection on responsible design.
Curators
Anniina Koivu
Anniina Koivu is a design writer, curator, consultant and teacher. Drawing on her experience in publishing, product development and exhibition curation, she develops design strategies and solutions. These range from editorial and research projects to art direction for new concepts and products. Her clients include Kvadrat, Vitra, Iittala, Camper, Arita 2016, Helsinki Design Week, MAAT Lisbon, Fiskars Design Village, Salone del Mobile, Phi Foundation for Contemporary Art Montreal and Shorefast Foundation of Fogo Island, for whom she is design director of the Smaller House Furniture collection.
Part of the curatorial team of the 2021 Supersalone, she created The Lost Graduation Show, in which more than 170 international graduates showcased their final projects at Milan’s Salone del Mobile. Koivu is the co-founder of U-Joints, a research project and exhibition series exploring the details of the human-made world. She is founder of Koivu, the Finnish-Italian knitwear brand, and Head of Master Theory at ECAL in Lausanne.
Jane Withers
Jane Withers is an independent design curator, writer and consultant. Her London-based studio works with cultural institutions and global brands on exhibitions, programming and design-led strategies that address social, cultural and environmental challenges.
The studio has long been concerned with sustainability issues and recently curated the biennale BIO27 Super Vernaculars at the Museum of Architecture, Ljubljana, and Water Pressure: Designing for the Future at MK&G Hamburg, touring to Museum für Gestaltung Zürich and MAK Vienna. Withers has curated exhibitions and programmes at London’s Design Museum, the Royal Academy of Arts and the Victoria & Albert Museum among others. She is a consultant for brands and organisations including Kvadrat, London Design Festival, Svenskt Tenn and Therme.
She sits on advisory boards and juries and has recently been a visiting lecturer at the Royal College of Art and ECAL in Lausanne. Recent books include Materialising Colour: Journeys with Giulio Ridolfo (Phaidon) and Social Sauna: Bathing & Wellbeing. She was awarded an honorary fellowship by the University of Westminster for services to the environment and received Milan’s Design Prize for Experimentation for her Water Futures research programme.
Jeffrey Bernett
Based in New York, Jeffrey Bernett founded the design firm CDS in 1995 and presented his first collection, Ideas for Production, at the 1996 International Contemporary Furniture Fair (ICFF), winning the Editors’ Award for Best of Show. Since then, his work has spanned various disciplines, extending from design-related, problem-solving products to larger, more complex systems.
Bernett has worked with several of Europe’s leading furniture brands, including B&B Italia, Boffi, Cassina and Cappellini. Other clients include BMW, Boeing, Condé Nast, Dupont/Corian, Design Within Reach (DWR), Herman Miller, Knoll, Kvadrat, Mercedes-Benz and Northwest Airlines/Delta. Bernett believes that the best solutions emerge from equal parts humanity, intellect and creativity. CDS holds numerous patents, and has received many international design awards.
Njusja de Gier
Njusja de Gier is the Senior Vice President Marketing & Digital of the Kvadrat Group and responsible for the global marketing and branding strategy of Kvadrat’s seven brands: Kvadrat, Kvadrat/Raf Simons, Kvadrat Febrik, Kvadrat Acoustics, Kvadrat Shade, Sahco and Kvadrat Really. Furthermore, she is responsible for the digital transformation and e-commerce within the Kvadrat Group.
She has been a driving force behind Kvadrat’s design and art projects, including Textile Field (2011), Hallingdal 65 (2012), TheDwelling Lab (2013), Blue is Divine (2014), My Canvas (2016), Knit! (2020) and publications including Interwoven (2013), Your Glacial Expectations (2015), Daily Flower Report (2019) and Kvadrat’s online magazine Interwoven.
Before joining Kvadrat in 2008, Njusja held positions at Wibroe Duckert & Partners, MTV, and Proctor & Gamble. She is part of Kvadrat’s senior management team. She holds an MBA from Erasmus University/Rotterdam School of Management and an executive master's from Nyenrode Business University.
Johanna Agerman Ross
Johanna Agerman Ross is a curator of 20th century and contemporary design at the V&A in London. In this role she has curated the museum’s new permanent gallery, Design 1900-Now, as well as the international touring exhibition Plastics: Remaking Our World. She is also leading the new initiative Make Good: Rethinking Material Futures, an annual symposium and display at the V&A that is dedicated to looking at natural, renewable materials – wood in particular.
Before the V&A, Agerman Ross founded the quarterly design journal Disegno in 2011 and continues to oversee the publication alongside her curatorial work. Her practice is focused on sharing stories around design and uncovering narratives that are often unseen or that go unnoticed. This is also the focus of her latest project, Design Stories, at Röhsska Museum of Design and Craft, Gothenburg, a new permanent exhibition that is due to open in 2024.