For her first exhibition at 3daysofdesign, Karmameju founder Mette Skjærbæk presents a new body of herbarium works. In this interview, she reflects on the journey from childhood memories of her parents’ garden and years of pressing plants to the creative dialogue between nature, craft, and composition that defines her work today. A conversation about inspiration, collaboration, and finding a new artistic outlet.
As 3daysofdesign describes it themselves, the festival is a platform to showcase and celebrate great design – a festival for dreamers, doers and the design-curious.
I am both proud and humble to be part of this annual design festival in Copenhagen, which is open to everybody.
Represented by Galleri Sonja, in a space designed by Norm Architects and in the iconic Kvindernes Bygning, it feels almost surreal to me that my herbarium works will be shown in such distinguished company.
The exhibition A Dialogue Between Nature and Craft brings together artists and designers whose practices are guided by material sensitivity, the slow processes of handcraft and a shared approach to making, where form takes shape through attention, place and time.
As 3daysofdesign describes it themselves, the festival is a platform to showcase and celebrate great design – a festival for dreamers, doers and the design-curious.
I am both proud and humble to be part of this annual design festival in Copenhagen, which is open to everybody.
Represented by Galleri Sonja, in a space designed by Norm Architects and in the iconic Kvindernes Bygning, it feels almost surreal to me that my herbarium works will be shown in such distinguished company.
The exhibition A Dialogue Between Nature and Craft brings together artists and designers whose practices are guided by material sensitivity, the slow processes of handcraft and a shared approach to making, where form takes shape through attention, place and time.
It sums up quite precisely how I feel when I am working with pressed plants. My work feels like a dialogue between me and the plants – a meticulous, patient process of finding the motif and then refining it.
I have always loved jigsaw puzzles, and I feel like I now do them in free form with plants. I really appreciate graphic design, and composition is everything to my eye.
Many of my works represent “people” to me. Families, couples etc. The composition often becomes the “dialogue” the figures seem to have with each other.
Having a dialogue with nature is important to me. I believe that city people need regular contact with nature to thrive. Working with plants – finding them in nature, growing them, harvesting them, pressing them and finally composing the finished piece – is a process I appreciate enormously. Not least because it brings me into a dialogue between nature and craft, where the two merge.
It sums up quite precisely how I feel when I am working with pressed plants. My work feels like a dialogue between me and the plants – a meticulous, patient process of finding the motif and then refining it.
I have always loved jigsaw puzzles, and I feel like I now do them in free form with plants. I really appreciate graphic design, and composition is everything to my eye.
Many of my works represent “people” to me. Families, couples etc. The composition often becomes the “dialogue” the figures seem to have with each other.
Having a dialogue with nature is important to me. I believe that city people need regular contact with nature to thrive. Working with plants – finding them in nature, growing them, harvesting them, pressing them and finally composing the finished piece – is a process I appreciate enormously. Not least because it brings me into a dialogue between nature and craft, where the two merge.
Herbarium feels like a natural extension of my work with nature’s ingredients in skincare.
In our skincare, I work with natural ingredients that are loved by the skin, as well as with the art of perfumery, composing scents with real fragrances from nature. I am deeply grateful to work with our incredible “nose”, our perfumer Richard in England. I have never met anyone with such a deep understanding of natural fragrances as him.
Nature is the core of most things that I love. The herbarium art I create is a dialogue between nature and craft, while the skincare I create is a dialogue between nature and our largest organ: the skin.
Some of my clearest childhood memories are of my parents’ garden and greenhouse.
As a child, my windowsill was filled with little plants and cuttings. I have always loved plants.
I have pressed plants since the 1990s, when I lived in New York for seven years – a particularly creative and evolving time of my life. Some years back, I started creating herbarium compositions on paper, just as a creative hobby.
Two women, whose opinions I really value, independently said the same thing to me: “Mette – your art is good. Keep working on it.”
This became an important catalyst for me in starting to take the work more seriously and with more dedication. I set my imposter syndrome somewhat aside, immersed myself in the process and found my flow.
Some days I love what I create. Other days, my inner critic tells me it is not good enough. But with age, I have learned to just keep going and do my best.
I also think it is connected to my daughters growing up. As they spend more time away from home, I have gained more room for my own creativity. My work with Karmameju is very creative, but it also has to work within the framework of a larger business. My herbarium work gives me an additional creative space, and I am very grateful for the support I feel all around me.
These works are a new take on my work.
Until now, I have worked with pressed plants on beautiful paper. For this exhibition, I have turned the classic format on its head by working directly on glass. This allows light to pass through and creates an optical space around the lightest Japanese paper in the world, which the manufacturer from the Japanese mountains describes as “as thin as the wings of a mayfly”.
The pressed flowers and stems hover delicately above the open glass, left vulnerable – just like nature itself. This openness invites the viewer even closer to both nature and the craft.
Following the exhibition, the works will be finalised with another layer of museum glass and framed in oak, which adds the lovely grounding quality of wood to the works.
Birgit Lyngbye from Galleri Sonja and Norm Architects are the inspiration behind this new direction in my work. I love collaborating with people, and I am so looking forward to experiencing the herbarium works in dialogue with the craftsmanship and design that define the exhibition.
Yes, I love circles. Always have. I find them so pleasing to the eye.
The centrepiece of the exhibition, Seed Pod Moon, is for me a symbol of how essential nature is for Earth when we look at it from afar – as far away as the moon.
Yes, I love circles. Always have. I find them so pleasing to the eye.
The centrepiece of the exhibition, Seed Pod Moon, is for me a symbol of how essential nature is for Earth when we look at it from afar – as far away as the moon.
One of the great things about working with herbarium is that I notice nature even more now.
I stop the car to pick plants by the roadside, and I pick weeds between the cobblestones when I am out for a walk.
My most important collaborators are my parents and their garden. They do much of the planting, harvesting and pressing. My mum is always on the lookout for plants that will transform beautifully when they are pressed. She inspires me, and always has.
Our family garden on Funen is also slowly becoming part of the story behind the works. My work is often described as peaceful and calming, and there is so much beauty and calm in my parents’ garden that I believe its essence can be felt quantum physically in the works.
The inspiration feels like a flow between craft, creativity and nature – something that moves through me and, in some ways, creates itself.
Open to everyone
Dates:10–12 June 2026
Opening hours:10–17
Location: Kvindernes Bygning, Niels Hemmingsens Gade 8-10, Copenhagen
Even if you don’t use aromatherapeutic skincare or products for the home, nature still ensures that aromatherapy is all around us. Trees and plants release invisible plant compounds, phytoncides, which research links to lower stress levels and increased activity in the body’s natural defence cells. This is a beautiful account of forest bathing, nature’s aromatherapy and the scientific evidence behind it.
