CCG : Crafted Consumer Goods
2023 @ Personal WorkThe work aims to push the boundary of craftsmanship, especially the rattan weaving technique and examine how much the crafts can be involved in the daily 21st-century consumer goods in our lives, other than baskets or decorative products of the house.
Wherever I go to the lifestyle product brand stores, I witness many decorative house objects made of natural material, especially rattan, and weaving techniques. Nowadays, people tend to seek out sustainability in their lives and purchase products that can make them closer to nature; hence, the material rattan is getting popular. However, it was ironic for me to see that, as a designer who used to be in the consumer products industry, even though brands and companies are stating how the industry should change and think about the impact on society and the environment, they are the biggest area of the using of plastics in a mass-production manufacturing system. Hence, I wondered what it would look like if craftsmanship were combined with consumer electronic goods and if there would be a limitation in using the function of the goods.
Therefore, I use rattan and its most related craftsmanship technique, weaving, to re-make consumer electronic goods. Before I weave, I divide the parts into exterior, system(functional) and extra parts. I incorporate outer parts made of plastic and rebuild and simplify the system parts to adapt to the new outer parts. It takes about two to three weeks to finish the one consumer product. Therefore, it is a contradictional work from what the current production system is doing, which is one hundred every hour, about of products are produced from the machine. Moreover, it is a new way of seeing the combination of craftsmanship and modern products that push the boundaries of craftsmanship, which are only held in decoration.
This work has been exhibited in Dutch Design Week 2023, Crafts Council Netherlands.
Instagram post of Dutch Design Week 2023 Crafts Council Netherlands