Sigurd Bronger: Torsten and Wanja Söderberg Prize

Artist list

Sigurd Bronger

Norwegian jewellery engineer Sigurd Bronger receives the 2012 Torsten and Wanja Söderberg Prize.

The Röhsska Museum prize committee for the Torsten and Wanja Söderberg Prize, with funds from Torsten Söderberg Foundation and Ragnar Söderberg Foundation, has unanimously decided to award Norwegian jewellery engineer Sigurd Bronger this year’s prize of SEK 1,000,000.

The prize committee’s comments:
“This year’s award winner is a jewellery engineer whose works invite us on a journey into a mechanical wonderland, full of boys’ dreams and romantic, joyful pranks. Sigurd Bronger takes us back to the early design language of industrialism and the innovations of the Renaissance, or forward to utopian visions of the future. Time is a material alongside precious metals, diamonds and wood, all meticulously selected and worked during a long, sterling process.”

The prize will be awarded at a ceremony in Gothenburg on 5 November 2012.
Besides the considerable prize money, the winner is able to present his work in a separate exhibition at the museum from 6 November 2012 through February 2013.

Torsten and Wanja Söderberg Award
This award was established in 1992 by the Torsten and Ragnar Söderberg Foundations as a memorial to the Söderberg spouses. The Torsten and Wanja Söderberg Award was first awarded in 1994 on Torsten Söderberg’s 100th birthday.
The purpose of the award is to promote design, fashion and handicrafts in the Nordic countries. Every sixth year, the prize is split into five equal parts, one for each Nordic country, and is used to reward particularly significant critiqued works within the subject area. Since the prize is awarded in the industrial design area, it can be divided equally between
several people working together in the same project. The award helps deepen collegial collaborations in the Nordics and augments fundamental Nordic values in design, fashion and handicrafts. The award is administrated by the Röhsska Museum, which considers it an honor.

The SEK 1,000,000 prize is the highest in the world; it is determined by a jury and awarded annually.