Mathias Vidas Olsen

Mathias Vidas Olsen

Mathias Vidas Olsen owns the goldsmith Ravnsgård Smykker, where he makes old-fashioned handicrafts, especially with a focus on jewellery.
Common to the ancient modern handicraft is that it always takes its starting point from the mytho-aesthetic universe of Scandinavian antiquity, but he often tries to incorporate modern technology and expressions. He works with woodcuts, paper cuts, jewelry and other applied art.

“Currently, I don’t work with product development as much as I work with production development. So I look at optimizing production, while at the same time trying to look at how other cultures over time have made crafts. What have their processes been when they have faced similar challenges as the craftsman has today, mainly the customer’s budget vs. the customer’s wishes vs. expenses associated with hourly wages in particular.

How do we streamline so that we can meet the modern clientele’s ideas of a fair price rent when we compete with the hourly wages of Polish, American, Chinese and other Eastern countries. Where is the limit for when something is automated and when the human hand is “enough”. Among other things, this is where Viadukten comes into the picture with its machinery that gives me the opportunity to experiment with production methods, expressions and designs.

Form follows production.”

“I would like to create something contemporary that is rooted in a cultural expression that may not be contemporary. To work in the field of tension between something that in one way or another still quite obsessively exists in our minds, but which is not really manifested and perhaps neither doesn’t really fit in. To find ways to get closer to the unsaid and examine the forms of expression from older times.”

Without Maker and Viadukten, I would not have had the opportunity to be where I am now. Its machines and flexibility with membership are alpha and omega in the way I think and carry out a large part of my production.

You can always get advice and guidance from people who have either worked with something similar to yourself, or who perhaps know the machines better than you do. And there is always the possibility of collaboration.

 

If you were to recommend Maker, what would your recommendation look like?


“I often recommend Maker to friends and colleagues who either need someone working on a project that I know is available in Viadukten, or I recommend the place based on the machine park and the workshop.”

Tue Dissing
Mathieu Bulliot