The Offspring installation by the Finnish designer and architect Ilkka Suppanen (born 1968) displays broken glass as it’s main theme. The unique texture of the delicate small glass plates, created in Murano in Claudio Tiozzo’s glass studio, reminds the viewer of melting ice or lace. The work is at once both fragile and powerful, presenting bold innovation while simultaneously referring to the noble Nordic design tradition of art glass. By employing a technique that emphasizes experimentalism and craftsmanship, Ilkka Suppanen manages to create new and yet timeless piece of glass art.

The theme of Ilkka Suppanen’s glass sculptures arises from the circulation of material. Ilkka Suppanen is interested in how glass as a material remains clean and reusable; glass it is never ultimately broken, as it can be reintegrated and reformed again and again. Additionally, the different states of water inspired the artist while creating these pieces.

Ilkka Suppanen studied architecture at Helsinki University of Technology, and Interior and Furniture Design at the University of Art and Design Helsinki. He completed his studies at Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam in 1992. In 1995, he founded Studio Suppanen, which is internationally renowned. In 1997, Suppanen established the award winning Snowcrash designer collective together with three colleagues, and in 2000 he was awarded the Design Forum’s Young Designer of the Year prize together with Harri Koskinen. In recent years, Suppanen has won several domestic and international awards and his works have been showcased in various international exhibitions, such as the Venice Architecture Biennale and in the MoMa in New York. He has designed objects and furniture for important companies such as Nokia, Marimekko, Artek, Iittala and Cappellini, and his works are part of the permanent collections of Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, the Museum für Angewandte Kunst in Köln and the Centre Pompidou in Paris.