Steinunn Bjarnadóttir is an Icelandic ceramic designer whose practice is shaped by her surroundings — both familial and geographical. She makes functional and sculptural pieces using a mix of techniques, mainly throwing and slipcasting.
Drawing from her Icelandic heritage and the places she moves through, Steinunn often works with locally sourced or discarded materials like wild clay, lava fragments, crushed brick, glass, and studio waste. These materials carry stories, and she’s interested in how they hold memory and shift how we think about value, use, and permanence.
Steinunn’s work supports contemporary craft by rethinking material choices and embracing a slower, more responsive way of making. Using site-specific and waste materials, she questions conventional resource use and draws attention to the potential of overlooked matter. Her process is intuitive and open-ended, shaped by quiet moments, material quirks, and small accidents that lead to new directions.
Steinunn is currently exploring how London’s architecture contrasts with her Icelandic hometown of Hafnarfjörður through form and surface, as she continues to push boundaries of material and expression.
Steinunn joined Design-Nation as a Professional member in 2025.
