A series of artistic pieces, installations and furniture created from consumer waste stream. The project was Carte blanche commissioned by Tripôle, the Swiss regional business collective responsible for sustainable management of product and material waste streams.
The company gave a unique opportunity to see first hand the flow of material. Being involved as Designers with a free mandate, there was an importance to telling the stories of objects. Some objects and materials called for a new life and design creativity enable this transformation. Seeing the accumulation of materials, personal history, and obsolescence of objects, was emotionally moving and creativity was blooming to try to elaborate the hidden life of these forgotten objects. By curating this waste creatively, together with the help of the individuals who help to divert this flow on a daily basis. “One’s trash became an other one’s treasure”.
The goal we set was, by exploring different ways of meaningfully and playfully re-purposing discarded materials, to let the public quantify and engage with it, reading the stories the collected objects had to tell, and seeing again the usefulness in these wasted things. The main motivation was to beautify objects seen as waste, but wouldn’t it be remarkable if recycling could be made, not just necessary, but sexy?
Throughout the life of this project, so much unexpected, intricate, and personal memorabilia was collected between the scrap and obsolescence. A cabinet of curiosity stored these ‘lost treasures’, placing a precious value on these few objects allowed people to talk about the life, and speculate about history of an object, each person able to look on things with an archaeological questioning. The cabinet left room to continue to be filled by the workers, allowing them to be treasure hunters and custodians; helping others to see a hidden value in ordinary things.
