Hasta La Ideas

London Design Festival 2013: a basketball hoop that catches the ball, an elderly broom and a bucket that’s meant for kicking feature in an exhibition of new work by British designer Carl Clerkin (+ slideshow).

Co-founder of homeware company All Lovely Stüff and furniture designer Carl Clerkin designed an assortment of fantastical assemblages made of everyday objects like brooms, buckets and bicycle wheels, modified and combined with a sense of humour for a solo exhibition called The Other Way

Objects include a basketball net fixed onto a skateboard, a one-legged table, a cover for a traffic cone, a small cupboard for storing your broom on the wall and a broom with tiny wheels.

“I usually design useful objects for the home,” said Clerkin. “Function is always the main driver, but I like the idea of the things that we live with having character and interacting beyond the physical.”

“I like the idea that a bucket can express an urge, or a broom can be more comfortable doing it the other way,” he added.

Clerkin has also built a wooden installation at the show for people who don’t have a loft in their home. People can climb up a wooden staircase, poke their head into a tiny attic and play with an electric train set that circles the space.

The Other Way exhibition is open at Gallery S O, 92 Brick Lane, London, E1 6RL throughout London Design Festival and will close on 29 September. There is also a small pop-up shop showcasing products by All Lovely Stüff.

Other design highlights from this year’s London Design Festival include the launch of a new products and furniture by design brand SCP and an exhibition of clay vessels that are based on the geological phenomenon of sinkholes.

See all our stories about London Design Festival 2013 »
See Dezeen’s map and guide to London Design Festival 2013 »

Images are courtesy of Gallery S O.

Here’s some more information about the designer:

About Carl Clerkin

“My Mother in law had one of those Chesterfield foot stools, the ones with the Cabriolet legs, she also had a Staffordshire Bull terrier. I always saw them as being related, Cousins perhaps.”

Carl Clerkin’s work is geared towards strengthening connections between people, objects, places and spaces. His subject is often the ordinary.

A bucket, a broom, a walking stick, a shed, a traffic cone, or details borrowed from these are often used as leavers to unlock hidden narratives within the objects he makes.

The work is often understated and draws very much on the familiar or the universally accessible in order to provoke our collective memories, to encourage understanding.

Clerkin has worked as furniture designer since graduating from the RCA in 1998. His clients include The Design Council, The Department for Education, Habitat, Lloyd Loom, Worldwide Co and Peugeot. The work varies from designing home-ware and furniture to exhibition design and gallery seating, though for this exhibition he plans to show work of a slightly different nature.

Established in 2010, All Lovely Stüff is a British homeware company that produces and sources well-made, practical and affordable products that make everyday tasks easier and more enjoyable.

Founded by Carl Clerkin and Ed Ward, two designers with impeccable design pedigrees at companies such as Habitat, Details, Worldwide Co and Established & Sons.

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