A CULTURAL PLATFORM BY GYRI S. SUSRUD
Culture is the bridge.
Between people and between generations. Heritage is not nostalgia. It is raw material for what comes next.
Gyri S. Susrud is a Norwegian cultural historian, designer and speaker. She shows why culture gives people roots, meaning and belonging, how it helps people across countries understand each other, and how the stories of the past can shape the places, brands and ideas of the future.
The MissionWhy culture matters.
Culture is how we know who we are, where we belong, and how we find our way to each other.
Belonging.
Culture tells people who they are and where they come from. In a restless, global world, that sense of roots is what makes people feel at home, in a place, a company or a community.
Meaning.
Objects, places and traditions carry the stories of the people before us. When those stories are told, a room becomes more than a room and a brand becomes more than a product.
Innovation.
Everything new is built from something old. Heritage is a library of tested ideas, forms and crafts, and the most original work often comes from those who know their roots best.
About.
Gyri S. Susrud is a founder, cultural entrepreneur, historian, designer and speaker based in Oslo. After completing her MA in London, she founded Gyri Design, a textile brand rooted in Norwegian heritage, hand-painted in watercolour and printed sustainably on linen.
Her designs have been placed with Clarence House in New York, showrooms in Madrid and The Lot in Nashville. Her textiles can be found everywhere from a boutique hotel in the Bahamas to the historic Hotel Union Øye in Norway.
As a speaker, Gyri has given keynotes at venues including Oslo Design Fair. She advises architects and hospitality projects on cultural-historical foundations, and helps international companies use cultural heritage as common ground.
She is the founder of Where Culture Meets, which hosts intimate cultural gatherings and journeys in Norway, and her first book is on its way. Across all of it runs the same conviction: culture gives people roots, meaning and the courage to create something new.
Culture in a global world
Cultural heritage is the language that crosses every border.
Every culture has its own way of greeting, eating together, making decisions, showing respect and building trust. When people from different countries meet at work, these traditions meet too. Most of them are never spoken aloud, yet they decide whether people feel understood or misunderstood.
Teams that understand each other
When colleagues know each other's cultural background, they read each other better, collaborate with more trust and solve problems together faster.
Cultural heritage gives us a way in. A tapestry woven in a Norwegian valley, a family recipe, a building tradition or a local craft: everyone has something like it, and everyone recognises its value. Sharing where you come from, and meeting other people's roots with curiosity and respect, creates a common ground that no agenda or report can.
Gyri has built her work across Norway, the United Kingdom, the United States and Asia. She has seen how culture, taken seriously, turns differences into connection.
Brands that belong in new markets
A company that respects the heritage of the places it enters is welcomed rather than tolerated. Local culture becomes a door, not a barrier.
To understand each other, we first need to understand where we each come from.
Leaders who build lasting relationships
Understanding culture helps leaders make decisions that respect the people they affect, and build partnerships that hold across borders and generations.
Gyri believes cultural heritage is not something to protect behind glass, but something to build with.
Raised among rosemaling and hand-woven wall hangings in Telemark, she spent more than a decade turning Norwegian textile traditions into contemporary design through her brand Gyri Design, for interiors in Europe, the United States and Asia.
Through Where Culture Meets, she brings people together in places where history is still alive. And through her talks and consulting, she helps audiences, architects and companies put culture to work.
Those who work with Gyri come away seeing their roots differently: not as nostalgia, but as a source of belonging, meaning and new ideas.
Discover Gyri's work.
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Consultancy
The real story of a place, a farm, an estate or family becomes the fundation for architecture, interiors, brands & experiences
Architecture, interiors & hotels
Interntional Companies
Historic properties
Four ways Gyri brings culture to life: out loud on stage, into the places we build, onto the page, and in shared experiences.
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Gatherings
Intimate cultural gatherings and journeys where people meet Norwegian heritage in the places it still lives.
Gatherings in Oslo
The Cultural Journey through Norway
GATHERINGS
03
Writing
A new book on the way, essays on Substack, and two podcasts about people who carry culture forward
Book, coming soon
Essays on Substack
Podcast in the developing
01
Speaking
Keynotes, lectures, and workshops that shows the audience why heritage matters and how it connects people across boarders.
Conferences & Design fairs
Conpanies & Universities
Cultural Instituions
In Norwegian & English
TALKS & GATHERINGS
Speaking
Curated talks and network events that bring cultural entrepreneurs, architects, designers, and historians into the same room. Because the most important connections still happen in person.
Some topics.
Roots are the future
Why cultural heritage is the raw material of innovation, not a museum piece.
Building bridges
Connecting cultures, generations and disciplines, and what it takes to hold complexity without losing people.
Culture as common ground
How cultural heritage helps international teams, partners and customers understand and trust each other.
Whose story is it?
What happens when a pattern travels across borders and centuries, and who gets to own a tradition.
Workshops
Hands-on sessions using storytelling, textiles and materials to anchor a creative vision in heritage.
Consulting
Gyri works with architects, interior designers, hotels and major projects that want the real story of a place as their foundation.
History mapping
Uncovering and researching the history of the place, farm or objects: who lived there, what happened, and which objects or traditions have a story worth bringing forward.
Concept development
Weaving the historical narrative together with the client's own innovation into one coherent story that carries through brand, marketing and physical space.
Holistic guidance
Making sure storytelling, interiors, textiles and architecture work together as one experience, in collaboration with interior designers and architects where technical drawings are needed.
Storytelling, marketing and experiences
Putting the story to work: in positioning and communication, in written text for websites, marketing and presentations, and in curated cultural-historical experiences like The Gathering, tailored to a farm or property as host or destination. Drawing on Gyri's own experience building Gyri Design and Where Culture Meets.
Writing.
Book, coming soon
A new book
Gyri is writing a book about why cultural heritage matters, and why it is the deepest source of what is genuinely new. More soon.
Essays on Substack
Where Culture Meets
Regular essays on heritage, identity, design and building a life around culture.
Podcasts, in development
Two new series
Conversations with women who create from the inside out, and a detective story asking who owns a pattern.
Gatherings
- where culture comes alive.
Where Culture Meets is Gyri's series of intimate cultural gatherings and journeys. Small groups meet Norwegian heritage not behind glass, but in a museum, an atelier, a stave church or on a farm, together with the people who keep the traditions alive.
Why gather?
Culture is not something you fully understand by reading about it. You understand it by tasting it, touching it, hearing it and sharing it with others. The stories in a woven tapestry, a folk song or a family recipe only come alive when people meet around them.
We spend more time on screens than together, and more time moving than belonging. Gatherings give people something increasingly rare: presence, real stories and conversations that last longer than the evening. Gyri started Where Culture Meets to create exactly that, a place where heritage is lived, not just remembered.
Heritage becomes living.
Traditions are experienced with all the senses, through craft, food, music and stories told in the places they belong.
Strangers become a community.
Small groups and shared experiences turn guests into a circle of people who return, and who bring others with them.
Cultures meet as equals.
International guests discover Norwegian heritage, and bring their own stories with them. Every gathering becomes a meeting of
Building bridges.
Every gathering is a bridge: between past and future, between Norway and the world, and between the people who gather.
At Where Culture Meets, cultural heritage is not something to admire from a distance. It is a source of inspiration and a starting point for innovation. A weaving technique can inspire a new textile, a folk melody a new song, an old building tradition a new way of living. Guests meet the tradition bearers who show how the old is carried forward into something new.
That is the heart of Gyri's work: using our cultural heritage to understand each other, to inspire new ideas, and to build what comes next.
Who it is for
The Gathering
An intimate cultural-historical evening for 10 to 20 guests, at places like Norsk Folkemuseum, an artist's atelier or a stave church.
Stories, craft and conversation
Food rooted in tradition
First Gathering: Norsk Folkemuseum, October 2026
The Cultural Journey
Two to four days through Norway's living heritage, for international guests who want to go deeper than the usual itinerary.
Valleys, farms and historic places
Meetings with craftspeople and tradition bearers
Small groups, curated by Gyri
Join the guest list to hear about the next gatherings first.
Internationally minded people living in or visiting Norway, who are curious about the culture behind the country.
Newcomers to Norway who want to understand their new home, and meet people who share their curiosity.
Norwegians who want to rediscover their own roots in a new light.
Companies looking for meaningful experiences for teams, clients and international partners.
Private hosts marking a special occasion with something truly unforgettable.
The Private Experience
A cultural experience designed around you, for companies, clients, partners or private celebrations.
For teams and international guests
At your venue or a place Gyri selects
Can be hosted on a farm or historic property
Also by Gyri
Gyri Design
Heritage Textile
Sustainable fabrics rooted in Norwegian textile tradition, hand-painted in watercolour and designed for contemporary interiors.
Each pattern starts with a story, reimagined for the way we live today. Culture you can live with, every day.
Showrooms
Clarence House, New York, and The Lot, Nashville
Hotels
From a boutique hotel in the Bahamas to the historic Hotel Union Øye in Norway
Patterns
Skybragd, Gustav, Sverresborg, Vest-Telemark and more
Available
To the trade, and on gyridesign.com