’Walk the Plank’, launched in 2000, was in many ways a visionary project. On the one hand it pointed back in time towards the co-operation, so rich in tradition, between those eminent cabinet-makers and furniture designers, who during the post-war years created the generation of Danish Modern furniture. On the other hand the originators of the project also stressed the demand to the designers to walk the plank, if they wish to create something unique and forward-looking.

In 2008, the Walk the Plank Award is given to Ditte Hammerstrøm, who fully lives up to the requirements of the award: the uncompromising commitment and the original effort. Since her graduation from the Danish Design School in 2000 Ditte Hammerstrøm has designed a number of pieces of furniture opposing the conventional standards of the tradition of fine Danish furniture design. First of all, she has fondly taken in hand the upholstered furniture, hated by the functionalist designers, and created ensembles of furniture existing in the intersection between free and closely defined art, and between sculpture and furniture. Ditte Hammerstrøm’s furniture wants to communicate with us, with the spectator and the user, it has something expressive at heart and is at the same time exclusive and seductive.

Ditte Hammerstrøm belongs to a group of experimenting designers, pointing out new directions. At the exhibition in the Danish Museum of Art & Design marking the award, it is possible for the first time to see the works of Ditte Hammerstrøm as a whole. Most of the furniture has not yet been put into production, but perhaps it is precisely the Walk the Plank Award and the exhibition that will lead to a multiplication of some of the subjects – so as to inspire and delight many people.

Bodil Busk Laursen

Museum director
The Danish Museum of Art & Design