Hasta La Ideas

Max Lamb‘s book ends were created by cutting a standard brick in two

For its latest exhibition, Object Abuse, London’s KK Outlet challenged a group of leading artists, designers and stylists (including Chrissie Macdonald, Hudson Powell, Jiggery Pokery, Michael Marriot, Noma Bar, and Wilfrid Wood) to transform an everyday object, repurposing it to create an entirely new item, using as little additional materials as possible…

“The aim of the project,” says KK Outlet, ” is to create a collection of re-imagined objects which highlight not only how everyday items can be recycled into something new, but also how we think differently when we work with our hands and how physical interactions creates new ideas over and above working through concepts on screen.”

Here are some of our favourite concepts from the exhibition, which opens tomorrow and runs until September 25:

Lamb also found attaching a handle to a brick turned it into a handy door stop

Product designer Alex Hulme created a mudguard for his bike out of a discarded fruit box:

Femke Agema created a facemask out of an old plastic milk bottle

Set designer and prop-maker Kelly Angood could well apply to be in the A-Team: she created a half frame 35mm pinhole camera out of this cardboard box

Inventory Studio didn’t really come up with a new concept: they created a car arial out of a coathanger. Rarely, though, has a coathanger car aerial been created with such illustrative aplomb. I love the how-to instruction guide created with illustrator Natalie Ashman:

Sanderson Bob‘s handwritten instructions to create a salt shaker out of a ping pong ball is also rather charming:

… as is artist Wilfrid Wood‘s illustrated imagining of a chandelier made out of bicycle handlebars:

The chandelier, now built, looks like this:

Dominic Wilcox turned paintbrushes into coathooks (yes, they are functional)

Furniture design studio Deadgood cut up For Sale signs and rebuilt them as bird boxes

Object Abuse runs from September 2- 25 at KK Outlet, 42 Hoxton Square, London N1 6PB as part of London Design Festival and the ICON Design Guide. For a full list of contributors and for more info, visit kkoutlet.com.

All proceeds of exhibition sales will be donated to the St Monica’s of Hackney Primary School Art Department.

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