Photographer Rhys Thorpe.
For centuries, domestic furniture has lived alongside us silently, encouraging interaction with the body and serving their purpose as functional objects. Because of their usefulness, they can stay with us for a long time. Being in our everyday lives, they absorb the memories and histories around them, acting as a material testament to people or occasions, so much so that they can become containers of memories.
However, in today's consumerist society of six-month leases and three-month fashions, small scratches and imperfections on household furniture, are accepted as reasons for replacement, and disposability is encouraged.
As designers and manufacturers continue to re-design the chair, or the table for example, to suit an aesthetical preference, do they think about how much of our worlds resources they are condemning to landfill? And if we are discarding these containers of memories then are we not, in effect, condemning our memories?
Re-Design is a project which addresses the need for desirable, fashionable furniture, but does so by recognising the worth and value in unfashionable or damaged objects, using existing, unwanted or discarded furniture and material found on the streets of Leeds, or donated to the project, as the material and framework of the products. By altering the functions and aesthetics of the furniture, I have found new ways to experience, explore and expand the possibilities of these existing domestic objects, increasing their longetivity, whilst still retaining and celebrating their history. Showing that yesterdays junk can be todays treasure.