We invited 26 designers to take part in the Deptford Design Market Challenge to re-design an object from the unique Deptford thrift market for an exhibition in September at the Royal Festival Hall located on London’s South Bank, as part of the London Design Festival.
Designers that took part included
Daniel Eatock, Stuart Haygarth , Maxim Velcovsky, Karen Ryan, Kate MaestriGitta Gschwendtner, Based Upon Conran and Partner,Rebecca Oldfield, Simon Heijdens, Simon Elvins Julia Lohmann, Martí Guixé, Max Lamb, Alexander Taylor, Peter Jensen, Tony MullinDaniel, Brown Michael Cross, Linda Florence, Nadine Jarvis , Paul Cocksedge, Idol Hands.
The curatorial brief
The design challenge we had set was about the creative process of transformation. Transformation is the design metaphor for our curatorial brief, a process to change, alter, and even convert to new ways of thinking. We where delighted that all designers invited accepted our brief to re-interpret, re-use, re-cycle, re-think and transform an item from Deptford Market. And to do this they could use any method they consider appropriate, from deconstruction to decoration to manipulate to change of their found object.
On this level, the brief was straightforward, but the wider issues that impact on re-use are more complex. We wanted the designers to reflect on ways the work could make a contribution to innovative design thinking. The growing move, for example, to use design skills to address social and economic issues about what we consume and the way we live. To consider questions such as where is design best applied and who is doing the designing? Within the same brief, transformation was the aims to change visitor perceptions about Deptford using the transformed objects to delight, amuse, astound and inspire the diverse range and large numbers of expected visitors to the Royal Festival Hall. We wanted these visitors, their families and friends to visit Deptford Market and see for themselves the potential of different ways of thinking. We also want them to take a take a fresh look at Deptford, its rich traditions, its growing prosperity and creative diversity. We want the visitors to be transformed.
