Artek Pauper Coin Collector

Pauper Coin Collector is an expressive ceramic piggy-bank designed by the Finnish COMPANY for Artek. It was inspired by an old Finnish tradition of placing wooden pauper statues outside churches to collect money for the poor. According to COMPANY, the Pauper is a reminder of the cold, dark polar night season that emphasizes the importance of helping one another.

Designed by the Finnish-Korean designer duo COMPANY and released in 2019, the ceramic objects are part of the FIN/JPN Friendship Collection by Artek. The collection celebrates the 100th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Finland and Japan. When designing the objects, COMPANY imagined what kind of gifts the Finnish delegation could have brought with them to Japan a hundred years ago. Each of the handmade, charmingly naive objects celebrates one seasonal ritual of the Finnish calendar.