For London Craft Week 2025, invited by Carl Hansen & Søn, Mentsen produced a series of woodblock prints and mobile sculptures made with the offcuts material from the Carl Hansen & Søn’s production of their iconic pieces, celebrating the material and chance encounters.
Over the two levels of their London showroom, among beautiful collection of lighting and furniture by Carl Hansen & Søn, together with the pieces specifically made with offcuts sent from Denmark, we have dotted some of our small accessories, a printing tool cabinet and a room divider (screen) with mounted woodblock prints.
As a part of Craft Week programmes, we also run a mobile making workshop and print making workshops to their invited guests.
Material Encounters by Mentsen
Wood is one of the most well cherished resources in human history, and our ancestors knew how to use it and live with it well. And its wide range of patterns and warmth of the texture comfort us and stimulate our sensitivity.
Material Encounters is Mentsen’s exploration of the conversation with materials – wood and paper in this case – and the layers of chance encounters: thinking about the journey of the material which is the intersection of various decision makings by multiple parties on different reasons; pure beauty and emotional value of meetings of different materiality; and what we make with them.
Invited by Carl Hansen & Søn, Mentsen produced a series of woodblock prints and mobile sculptures made with the offcuts material from the Carl Hansen & Søn’s production of their iconic pieces, celebrating the material and chance encounters.
There are a number of encounters and decision making involved in the timber production process, from cutting down the tree to milling it to a certain dimensions to drying over a year, and then machining to finally becoming a part of a chair, a table or a house. The figure on the surface of a plank is a unique story of a tree, a result of a number of these encounters and decisions made by multiple parties along the way.
In furniture production, uniformity and consistency of the materials are key to achieve best results. There’s a great skill in reading the figure and grain of the wood, assessing suitability for the particular purpose. And which inevitably produces pieces that fall below the standard, or sawn off and end up as surplus. Knots, checks, pips, burrs and colour streaks, unique characters in the wrong context become undesirable defects.
But the resource deemed unsuitable for one use does not mean waste, and there are other applications that celebrate the unexpected. Or different parts have different uses. We often joke that paper is more wood than MDF. Wood is one of the most well used resources in human history, and our ancestors knew how to use it and live with it well.
On design projects, we actively search for something in material, be it the strength, the size, particular figure, etc. But at the same time, what’s left from this elimination process becomes a new potential idea for making something else. As a studio that works in both designing and making, we found this very interesting.
Ground floor, prints and mobile made with CH24 chair parts
4 hanging prints above counter, printed with CH24 parts; rejected legs (before shaped)
Hanging mobile, made with CH24 parts; armrest (steam bent, before shaped), armrest offcuts, and a damaged leg
Mobile, made with various factory offcuts
2 of (set of4) prints in ash frame, printed with CH24 parts; offcuts / Two mobiles, made with various factory offcuts; CH24, CH26, and others
Large print in douglas fir frame, printed with CH20 parts; backrest, an old showroom sample / A mobile on FB001 Tsugi Shelf, made with various factory offcuts; CH24 and others
2 of (set of4) prints in ash frame, printed with CH24 parts; offcuts
Mentsen Either trays and butterknives
Mentsen offcuts breadboard, accessories
Mobile, made with CH20 parts; damaged backrest
Bundle of washi paper
Mentsen screen side 1
Mentsen screen side 2
Mentsen printing tool cabinet
Mentsen printing tool cabinet
Mobile made with various factory offcuts
Mobile made with CH24 parts; damaged legs (before and after shaped)
Parts for mobile making workshop
Participants were asked to pick two weights, an arm, and a base of their choice
They were asked to assemble, find a balance point
Some extra adjustments were assisted by Mentsen
Print making workshop set up
Woodblock prints were made using baren, hand varnisher and ordinary items like paper stencil, spoons and folks
Participants' prints drying on rack
Examples on the wall
Making impression with chopsticks
CHS team also had a go at the prints!
Making of the prints and mobiles
After some exchange of emails and phone photos, we received a box of factory offcuts from Denmark. As suspected for a factory of such established and large manufacturer, their operation is very efficient and does not produce as much offcuts in their factory like our workshop may produce. Much of the shaping is done on CNC, meaning their waste tends to be sawdust or damaged pieces off the machining process. They repurpose those scrap into wood pellets to heat the plant and more than 400 local homes in Gelsted, Denmark.
We enjoyed the challenge of making something that looks interesting, but still recognisable as parts of their iconic products. Also we enjoyed the freedom of scale in this project. The print of CH24 leg parts consist of continued pattern over 4 sheets of washi paper, measures 4 meters wide and 2 meters high together, largest print we have ever made. Mobiles did not have a constrain of fitting into a “desktop” size, more a convenient size as object for ordinary home. But for this occasion, some needed to fill the space, or had to stand out in the showroom space among many other competing objects.