Formex Focuses on Sustainability at Café Conversation Piece

When Formex opens its doors on January 17, sustainability will take up more space than ever before at the fair. The 250 square meter Café Conversation Piece in Hall A is entirely dedicated to sustainability issues and has been created by IMMA – Malin Jensen, Maria Lagerman, and Maria Soxbo – who were behind the exhibition Hållbart? at Formex last autumn.

Café Conversation Piece consists of five colorful rooms on different sustainability themes, as well as a creative workshop space. All rooms have been designed with a strong emphasis on resource conservation – carpets, walls, and furniture are rented and will be reused at future fairs. The interior design and decorations – "conversation pieces" – have been created largely from saved materials from last autumn's fairs at Stockholmsmässan, such as carpet tubes, scrap pieces, and other materials that would otherwise have been discarded. The reuse is also two-way: A banner made from striped fabric created for the café will, after the fair ends, be transformed into a clothing creation by redesign artist Stina Löving, which will be showcased at Formex in the autumn.

– Waste is simply resources in the wrong place, and we want to highlight that in the café. We’ve literally kept each other on our toes to find interesting items from the bottom of the fair's waste bins, and then stored everything in a container at the fairgrounds until now. All to show that "garbage" is only trash if we decide it's worthless – otherwise, it’s resources, says Malin Jensen, IMMA.

The rooms are created in collaboration with various partners:

• The Blue Room – theme ocean/plastic with carpet company Interface
• The Orange Room – theme textiles with Telge Recycling
• The Green Room – theme wool with Arena Svensk Ull
• The Yellow Room – theme biodiversity with Svenska Bivaxljus
• The Workshop Space – theme lifespan with Blombruket and Beyo Vintage

Additionally, there is a Red Room, created by IMMA themselves, with the theme of collaboration, aimed at encouraging the fair's companies and visitors to explore ways of working together.

– Formex is a trade fair and a platform for development, information, and inspiration, and for us, it felt important to highlight actors who are at the forefront of sustainability and transition. The future is about circular business models and closed loops, and we would be thrilled if Formex visitors leave the fair with new ideas on how their companies can become more circular and with potential future collaborations, says Maria Lagerman, IMMA.

The name of the café, Café Conversation Piece, refers both to the interior items made from "trash" and to the purpose of this meeting place – to encourage conversation.

– The transition depends on us actually talking to each other. That we collectively address the issues at hand, brainstorm solutions, find ways to collaborate to spread knowledge, share resources, and most of all, because this is what we humans are good at – communicating with each other. We hope for many "aha" moments and exciting conversations in all of the café's rooms, says Maria Soxbo, IMMA.

The majority of the climate-smart menu for Café Conversation Piece has been created by food creator and cookbook author Hanna Olvenmark.

– This is the first time I’ve let a café use my recipes, so it’s very exciting! I hope the visitors have a wonderful experience at the fair and enjoy a nice, relaxing moment with a delicious taste of eating in a more planet-friendly way, says Hanna Olvenmark.

Formex will be held from January 17–19 at Stockholmsmässan and is the most important meeting place for Nordic interior design. Read more at www.formex.se.

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