Abstractions of a City

The publication is showing a selection of 20 necklaces from the series Abstractions of a City made by Karin Johansson. The project started in 2011 and has been developed during the time.
The cover, a picture of a place, gives a hint of the starting point and inspiration for the work, the city that surrounds us. In this catalogue, the reader is invited, by folding out the pages to find the necklace in its natural, full-sized scale.
The backside of the folded pages are colored in soft colors like pink, green and gold, and refers to the variety of colors and materials in the necklaces. The colored pages also connect with the design of the earlier publication Collecting Butterflies.
Once again Karin Johansson colaborated with the design studio Happy to create a delicate and minimalistic publication, that very well connect and speaks the same language as the jewellery itself. The design studio Happy made also the layout of the earlier publication “Collecting Butterflies”.

The publication is part of the graphic design collection of the Neue Sammlung – The Design Museum Munich.

Text in English.
Pictures of jewellery and publication made by elStudio.


In the beginning, a variety of many-coloured images of a city: meeting points, streets, people, blue skies, night and day. 
Staying in a playful mood, capturing the pulse, the movement, or the silence. Sketching, cutting paper, creating a map of sorts in my studio, micro, and macro at once as my perspective. 
Picking out colours, choosing materials, thinking about my purpose, reflecting on meanings and limitations. 
Giving each element its shape, assigning it a size and its place, connecting it further to circle in something of this scene. 
Having it all transform into a necklace seemed only most obvious to me: no up, no down, wrapped around me, playing, constantly detouring in new directions. 
Wearing the object, I become the inhabitant of the new place.
/ Karin Johansson