François Royer works some kind of sculptural – design magic and transforms nasty discarded oil barrels into beautiful furniture. In his hands, industrial waste gets a new life as unique end tables and mobile storage units.
Royer started his recycle-design business five years ago in his Paris basement. It has expanded into a full on design company, Motxo Design which now makes a line of recycled items made out of materials such as: old shopping carts and washing machine drums.
[via Apartment Therapy]
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Very cool. I love the more symbolic meaning: oil is something we treat with such ambivalence in today’s world, both a cornerstone of capitalist economy and the root of so much conflict. Royer’s work nails this dichotomy – the ugly becomes beautiful, but still reminding us of the object’s original purpose hiding beneath the coats of paint.
Reminds me of this Cambodian initiative I read about on BoingBoing a long, long time ago. It was called Peace Art Project Cambodia and involved sculptures and furniture made out of de-commissioned recycled weapons, aimed at promoting a gun-free society. Unfortunately, both of their websites are down (this was in 2003), but here’s the original BoingBoing link if anyone’s interested: http://www.boingboing.net/2004/12/26/art-from-old-weapons.html
September 15th, 2008 at 2:04 am