Akiko Kuwahata, born in Japan in 1976, graduated in 1999 from the College of Art at the Nihon University, Japan. She worked as a cabinetmaker at Hinoki Kogei Ltd in Japan (1999 -2003) and studied Furniture and Interior Design at the School of Architecture in Aarhus, Denmark (2004-2005). In 2010, Kuhatata opened her own design studio together with Ken Winther, with whom she has been creating design objects ever since. In parallel, she worked part time at PP Møbler from 2013 to 2020, where she was able to gain a greater understanding of Danish design.

Ken Winther, born in Denmark in 1973, was trained as a cabinetmaker at PP Møbler (1991 – 1995), where he later worked from 1998 to 2021. In 2010, he established his own design studio, Akiko Ken Made, together with Akiko Kuwahata. He simultaneously studied Japanese woodworking and worked as a cabinetmaker at Hinoki Kogei Ltd in Japan.

Kuwahata and Winther were awarded the Arts and Crafts Prize of 1897 in 2016 and the Danish Craft and Art Association Prize in 2017. Their works have been exhibited in Denmark and internationally, including at the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, Japan; MINDCRAFT 15 and MINDCRAFT 16, Milan, Italy; The Salon: Art + Design, New York, USA; PAD London, UK; Design Miami/Basel, Switzerland and TEFAF New York, USA. 

Artist’s Resume