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designboom visits Fredrik Nielsen’s studio garage in stockholm
Fredrik Nielsen brings a new dimension to glassblowing, transforming the centuries-old craft into a raw, instinctual experience shaped by music, neon, graffiti, and the energy of his industrial studio in Årsta, southern Stockholm. For him, glassblowing is an act of performance rather than mere technique—molten glass twists, breaks, and reforms in an ongoing tension between control and chaos.
During Stockholm Design Week 2025, designboom visited Nielsen’s studio and had the opportunity to craft a piece alongside the artist in real time. The process incorporates chance, accident, and physicality, infusing the final sculptures with layers of embedded materials, hidden colors, and unexpected distortions. The artist’s works reshape perceptions of glass, encouraging viewers to see it from fresh perspectives, aiming to prove that it can be wild, rebellious, and alive. Nielsen’s pieces resist categorization, from large-scale sculptures to unconventional wine glasses—objects that incorporate art into everyday objects. His approach extends into public art, engaging audiences in unexpected ways. His sculptures often contain hidden elements—layers of color, embedded materials, or distortions that reveal themselves only upon closer inspection. ‘How I treat and work with glass is the framework for my style and who I am,’ he shares during our workshop. ‘Several of my art objects possess secret treasures hidden inside.’
outside the studio of Fredrik Nielsen | all images courtesy of Fredrik Nielsen, unless stated otherwise
turning glassblowing into raw performance
The studio space is an extension of Fredrik Nielsen’s work—hot, loud, and alive with the weight of heavy machinery. The glassblowing process includes furnaces roaring and tools clattering, with the glass itself seeming to vibrate with kinetic energy. For the Swedish artist, every piece is a challenge, a performance, and a reinvention of the material. ‘I want to create with my whole body and physically experience each part taking shape. Each new object is like its own competition, where the race can last several years before the art object reaches the finish line and has set new limits for what is possible to design with the material,’ he expresses.
Glass is deceptive—it glows orange from heat in its molten state, only to cool into a completely different palette. ‘It looks orange because of the heat,’ Nielsen says. ‘But then when it cools down, you can see blue, clear or yellow.’ His process embraces this unpredictability, pushing the boundaries of the form and durability of glass. ‘The thicker the glass, the longer the healing cycle,’ he describes, revealing that some pieces take up to 20 days to cool from 500 degrees Celsius.
transforming the centuries-old craft into a raw, instinctual experience shaped by music and graffiti
the swedish artist’s making process embraces chance
Trained at Orrefors in Sweden and Pilchuck Glass School in the USA, Fredrik Nielsen’s artistic philosophy resists the idea of glass as a fragile material. ‘The thickness makes it very durable,’ he explains. He also speaks of embedding history, power, and energy into his work, ensuring that even if a piece changes—if a kilo of glass falls off—it remains strong. ‘That could be this thing that I’m searching for. Not to destroy anything, but I love chance,’ he admits.
In one of his projects, the glass artist installed a neon sculpture featuring his phone number in a city street, inviting an unpredictable wave of responses. ‘I asked a couple of friends, “Is it crazy to put up my phone number in neon in the street?” And they’re like, “Yeah, that’s pretty wild.”‘ The result? A flood of late-night phone calls from strangers. ‘If I made a horse, they would be like, “Fuck that horse, it’s ugly.” But now they can call me, like, “I hate your number.” I can almost comfort them, like, “I know, but this is what I do,”‘ shares the artist.
the artist’s works reshape perceptions of glass | image by Julia Viklund
exploring the space between the object and what surrounds it
Fredrik Nielsen’s influence extends beyond the studio and exhibition halls. His work has been recognized internationally, with pieces housed in collections at Sweden’s Nationalmuseum, the Corning Museum of Glass in New York, and the Ariana Museum in Switzerland, among others. His impact on contemporary glass art has even been immortalized in Swedish postage stamps for 2025, carrying his work across the world. One of his most notable works, You’re Not the Only One (2019), has traveled globally, appearing in exhibitions from Stockholm to Seoul, Bornholm to Munich. First showcased in the Mixed Emotions exhibition in Stockholm, the piece later became part of the Loewe Foundation’s exhibition at the Seoul Museum of Craft before making its way to Belgium and Denmark.
His unconventional wine glasses, now an iconic hallmark of his work, started as an exploration of the set table—an intersection of function and sculpture. Over time, they have become increasingly impractical, questioning the relationship between the object and its surroundings. ‘The artworks can be seen as expensive wine glasses or relatively cheap sculptures,’ Nielsen notes. In Stockholm, Persona restaurant serves drinks from his glasses at the end of the evening, transforming the act of drinking into an artistic experience.
For Nielsen, art is about experience, even when the meaning isn’t immediately clear. ‘To see a show doesn’t necessarily mean that you understand what you went through, but you know you went through something important,’ he observes. This is the space he operates in—a space of unpredictability, transformation, and raw material energy.
Nielsen’s pieces resist categorization | image by Julia Viklund
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