The waste project came into existence more than ten years ago as a reaction to the annoyance of having to throw away material because it was too expensive to do anything with it. Not because it was worthless but because labour costs so much. The game of turning daily reality around and pretending that labour is free and materials are worth their weight in gold resulted in products that are, in theory, unsaleable (because labour is not at all free) but in practice, the products turned out to be saleable after all. As opposed to almost any other product, the waste products are made with the patience of a saint, quite a feat considering this is an age in which time is a rare commodity for pretty much everyone.
However this process, too, leaves waste material behind, in smaller amounts, and more difficult to use than our ‘usual’ waste material. This ‘waste from waste’ motivated us to take it a step further. In an effort to bridle the process to some extent, and keeping in line with the metal waste products, I came up with the idea of employing a fixed size of 40 mm x 40 mm. This size, combined with the decision to use the materials solely as an outer skin instead of stacking them, particularly defines the appearance of the products. Straight-edged shapes are formed which are always a multiple of 40 mm, and round is therefore not round.
Just as with the beam and tube furniture, the objects are numbered consecutively, and no two pieces will be identical.
The ‘interview set’ shown in the picture was made for the Ruinart stand at Art Basel and Masterpiece London. Once again, a niggling displeasure formed the basis for the design idea. In this case, it was because at earlier art fairs, and in the middle of a stand that I myself had though up, I had been obliged to sit on someone else’s furniture.
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