13.09.2026 Journal Talks with Sarah E. Haukka

Sarah E. Haukka is a Stockholm-based artist and founder of Studio Formbart, a practice that moves between art, craft, and design. Rooted in hands-on making and material exploration, her practice spans sculpture, objects and spatial projects, primarily in tin and stoneware.

Each piece develops through an intuitive, process-led approach in which the material influences the final form.

How important is the space where you create your designs? Take us into it, and then through the process, from idea to finished object.

Space and surroundings are very important to me. They influence how I feel, how I function and where I find inspiration. To me, a good studio is less about being perfect and more about making creativity easy: having tools and materials within reach, room to begin new experiments, and space to keep things whose purpose is not yet clear. 

My studio is filled with tools, fragments and unfinished experiments, and seeing them around me often creates unexpected connections. An idea may begin with a gesture, a form, a quality of light or a feeling found in nature or everyday life. I often start by making a prototype or testing a material; the sketches come later, once I understand where the idea is going. 

I try not to define everything from the beginning, as doing so can prevent me from noticing what emerges along the way. With tin especially, there is always an element beyond my control. The finished object comes through a balance between intention, experimentation and chance.

Everything made by hand is affected by our moods and emotions, consciously or unconsciously. The pressure of the hand, our breath. How does that show up in your creations?

For me, making is often an escape from thoughts and feelings: I become absorbed in the moment and the process. My decisions are intuitive, keep, change or reject, and irregularities emerge naturally. Only afterwards do I recognise symbols or understand my attraction to a particular form.

When making similar pieces, I can feel torn between consistency and the variations that give each one its character. I see these not as mistakes, but as traces of the process that allow each piece to retain its individuality.

I rarely begin by deciding on a specific emotion to express. Even when a work grows from something personal, I prefer not to define it too tightly. I want to leave space for both my own response and the viewer's, allowing emotion to arise through the encounter between the object
and its viewer.

Mistakes are part of every maker's process. Which of yours made it into the design?

The clearest example is the residual material created when I cast tin. Small spills and fragments form around the mould, and I used to see them simply as waste to be melted down again.

Then I began noticing shapes within them, bodies, bones, figures and landscapes. One fragment resembled a seated body, a back or a spine, so I preserved it rather than remelting it. It became SPINE, part of REMNANTS, an ongoing series of works created from residual forms.

It taught me to pay closer attention to what appears beside the thing I intended to make. Sometimes what appears to be a mistake contains a direction I could never have designed in advance.

Do you remember the moment you knew this was the path you wanted to take? Is it still the same well of influence you draw from?

The path was never obvious, but I have always been drawn to art and craft, and I've been fortunate to have had the freedom to explore many forms of making. 

When I was younger, I felt blocked by the belief that every work needed a clear intention and a story before I began. The turning point came when I realised an explanation didn't have to come first. I could trust my instincts, follow what sparked my curiosity or stirred a feeling, and let meaning emerge through the process.


That remains my source today: curiosity first, meaning later.

Who, and what, inspires you now? 

I often return to the work of Isamu Noguchi, Alexander Calder, Barbara Hepworth and Eduardo Chillida, artists who explored movement, material, space and inner experience through physical form.

Much of my current inspiration comes from my morning route from home to the studio. It gives me time to observe nature and architecture: the changing seasons, natural light, shadows and details that might otherwise go unnoticed.

I am also drawn to archaeological objects, worn tools and everyday rituals. Psychology and philosophy increasingly inform my interest in how inner experience takes outward form.  

Often, though, inspiration begins with a small, unexplained attraction, noticing something before understanding why it matters.

Playlist, podcast or silence: Do you listen to anything when you work? Silence and playlists.

I choose between them depending on the work, the state I am in or the one I want to enter. I choose silence when there is no room for more input or emotion, and music when I need rhythm, momentum or a way to lose myself in the process.

I create Studio Formbart playlists around different working states rather than genres, from stillness and focus to experimentation, nostalgia, trance and intensity.

Short and Sweet

The first thing you made.
The first object I made in tin was a knife rest (Cutlery Stand - Small), and I still have a particular affection for it.

A tool you couldn’t replace.
Quite a few. Most of my tools were inherited from my parents, grandparents and great-grandparents, and their histories make them irreplaceable. 

Something in your home you didn't make and never would, but still love.
The Il Conico kettle by Aldo Rossi for Alessi, one of the most frequently used and certainly among the most loved objects in my home.

Sarah’s pieces for Björk and Berries are handmade in Stockholm from tin, embracing subtle variations, marks, and irregularities. Designed for everyday rituals, the collection brings together functional objects and sculptural forms made to be used and lived with.

All items are on display and available for purchase at our flagship store on Riddargatan 20 from September 11th or online.