Seven artists redesign the urn for the US market

Wallpaper reported on 8 August 2026 that Urn Studios, the UK platform founded in 2024 by Merel Swart and Jonathan Hancock, has launched its first US collection. Seven American artists took part: Abbey Peters, C.C. Boyce, Hui-Yong Kim, Jesse Hamerman, Marianna Jamadi, Michelle Wen and Philip Kupferschmidt. Swart's argument for the project is that the funeral industry has spent decades offering generic products with little regard for individuality or design.

The results diverge deliberately. Kupferschmidt works with tactile glazes, Wen references historic ceramic traditions, and Jamadi integrates candles and flowers into a pared-back vessel. Hancock describes the collection as intentionally eclectic and argues that emotional sensitivity and bold design are not in conflict. The category is one design publishing rarely enters, partly because the purchase happens at the worst possible moment, from a funeral home catalogue, with near-identical options. Moving these objects into the territory of made-by-hand work raises the price, but it also restores the possibility of choosing.