Zanat
Zanat was formally launched as a design brand only in 2015 and it has come a long way since. Zanat’s roots, however, are to be found much earlier in history. It started more than a century ago when Gano the great grandfather of Zanat’s founders, Orhan and Adem Niksic, stumbled upon what once was a primitive hand-carving technique that originated from a small village close to our hometown of Konjic, just south of Sarajevo on the Neretva River.
Gano learned the carving technique from some pioneer woodcarver-entrepreneurs who (thanks to visionary educational support of the Austro-Hungarian empire’s regime that ruled Bosnia at the time) perfected the village technique beyond recognition and teamed up with already established furniture producers in Sarajevo, such as Buttazoni-Venturini, who exhibited hand-carved furniture pieces at fairs and exhibitions in Milan, Paris (Millennium exhibition of 1900), Vienna.
Monica Förster
Born in 1966, Monica Förster is the creator of some of the most internationally renowned objects in contemporary Swedish design today. Her work is characterized by a strong sense of pure form mixed with a never-ending curiosity for new materials and technology. Always trying to work in across-disciplinary way, she invents and renews typologies in industrial, furniture and object design.
Monica Förster, who is one of the top names within Swedish design, has created some of the future’s classic designs. Monica Förster Design Studio is based in Stockholm, and works globally with companies such as Alessi, Cappellini, Poltrona Frau, De Padova, Bernhardt, Volvo, Whirlpool, Vibia, Tacchini, Modus, Offecct and Swedese. She has been awarded numerous Swedish and international awards such as Designer of the Year and has been exhibited all over the world in museums and institutions such as MoMA, New York and VA museum, London. Monica Förster has also been represented in the International Design Yearbook.
