If you care, then repair – Design Anthology UK, Issue 15

There are a few moments in history to where you can trace the explosion of our single-use society. A New York industry event in 1950, when American clothing retailer B. Earl Puckett announced that “utility cannot be the foundation of a prosperous apparel industry. We must accelerate obsolescence.” Five years later, the cover of Life magazine depicted a family throwing plastic into the air with glee, under the headline “Throwaway Living”. And a comment that was made in 1956 that plastic’s future was “in the garbage can” (requoted in the 1997 book American Plastic: A Cultural History) – referring to the fact its profit lay not in the durability for which it was engineered, but in its disposability.

Today, fashion is fast, disposability is the norm and it is often easier to replace than repair. But we are starting to understand that this “take-make-waste” approach is not sustainable on a finite planet. We are running out of raw materials to take from the earth, generating too much carbon, making more and more stuff, and running out of space to safely dispose of our waste. We need to move towards a circular economy; one in which (as defined by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation) we design out waste and pollution, keep materials and objects in use, and regenerate natural systems. It is just possible that we are witnessing the moments in history at which that is starting to happen.

Venice’s Architecture Biennale in May was criticised by Zaha Hadid Architects principal Patrik Schumacher for not showing enough architecture. He drew particular attention to the German Pavilion, which he described as full of “piles of construction material”. But
perhaps he missed the point. The event, curated by Lesley Lokko, was lauded by other visitors for being the first major design and architecture event to take on some of the world’s biggest problems. And the German Pavilion? A material bank for Venice repair projects to “keep materials and objects in use”.

It’s not only architects who are putting repair at the heart of their thinking. British lighting company Anglepoise now offers a lifetime guarantee on new lamps and a repair service for vintage models. “We have for many years been sold products that are designed to fail at some point, while also being sold the ridiculous notion that something is better replaced in its entirety than repaired,” says chairman Simon Terry. “The design industry is distracting itself by moving the conversation towards recyclable or recycled materials but, of course, that isn’t enough. It needs to broaden its scope and stop churning out new things for the sake of it.”

Danish furniture company Takt is doing just that. Its first sofa, Spoke – launched in June – is designed to be repaired at home. “I hope we are part of a repair movement,” says Takt’s founder and CEO Henrik Taudorf Lorensen. “Besides the environmental benefits of extending the lifespan of products, our customers have become emotionally attached to the furniture that they have repaired.”

When people repair their own objects, whether it’s a sofa, a lamp or the knee of a child’s trouser leg, they don’t only increase the functional and emotional durability of that object, they also reclaim their own power. They start to ask questions about a system that has such little respect for the finite materials we have taken out of the earth and the labour that has shaped them into the objects we use every day.

Lebanese-British artist Aya Haidar creates installations that highlight the hidden labour of care and repair. “The personal agency that comes with repair goes against consumerism and represents a challenge to a broken system,” she says. “If there’s going to be any sustainable long-term change, everyone needs to take into account this responsibility and negotiate a bit of personal agency for themselves.” Perhaps that’s why repair is really important. It represents not only one practical solution to the environmental crisis, but a shift in mindset, a growing desire to challenge the systems that make fashion fast, disposability the norm and a broken object easier to replace than repair. I really hope we will look back on moments like the German Pavilion at the Venice Biennale as more than “piles of construction material” but as a physical marker of the moment when the circular economy really started to gather pace.

Image credit: Yeshen Venema Photography

This article was written for Design Anthology UK, Issue 15 published in September 2023.

Bridget Harvey Talks the Exploration of Repair (Circular by Design, Design Milk)

Bridget Harvey is a maker and practice-based researcher who has been examining repair, hope, and activism since 2012, through practices such as working as a repairer and maker, exhibitions, a practice-based PhD, an artist residency at the Victoria and Albert Museum, public speaking, and repair workshops.

Tell me about your childhood, education, background, and how you first became interested in repair.

In a lot of ways it was all very ordinary. However, I was always encouraged to make things, to tinker with things and to fix things. This might be making ideas that I had, or tie-dying clothes with my Gran, or helping maintain the house. While I was always encouraged to care for my things, repair them, re-use, and repurpose materials, I didn’t consciously notice my interest in repair until much later. I left school at 16, did a screen printing apprenticeship in Philadelphia and some other bits and pieces, then I settled in to a job at Waterstones bookshop for a few years, making and fixing things in my spare time. It was when I had been there for a few years that I decided to go back to studying, first at Morley College in Southwark, and eventually completing my PhD (on repair as practice) at University of the Arts London.

What appeals to you about repairing existing objects versus creating something new?

I guess I do a bit of both now – I make objects from materials from broken things, and I repair things. I do not like waste, and I want to explore and show how we can reduce our environmental impact by approaching making in different ways. In my making, I am really interested in individual agency – how we can use making to interact with and prolong the life of the precious materials we have around us. This can also bounce up the making scale – if enough individuals come together to ask how their things are made and why they can’t fix or adapt them, then hopefully manufacturing practices will change. I also think that the hands-on interaction with materials and stuff is good for us, we can do it alone, together, watching videos, or reading forums, whichever way – but touching the real things around us and understanding them is important.

There are many words for repair with slight nuances in their meaning – mending, fixing, hacking, restoring, repurposing… which do you prefer in relation to your work and why?

I prefer repair, for me this has both the clear direct meaning and also the flexibility. To repair something is to take it to a state that suits the way you want it – so not necessarily the way it was designed to be used, but how you want it to work. I often use the term repair-maker as well, to emphasize the link between the acts of repairing and making something new.

How would you describe this project or body of work?

I actually work with a lot of different materials, but one thing I have been doing now for about eight years is exploring ways of repairing ceramics. I call the series Sides to Middle, which is actually a textile phrase (you would cut your old, worn bedsheet down the middle, and sew the edges together to create a new, stronger middle area to sleep on). I like this phrase because to me, it also riffs on writer Rebecca Solnit’s suggestion that hope can help bring ideas in from the fringes to the conspicuous center ground, make them more noticeable. So with this body of work I have been trying to show that we can repair all sorts of things, to show different methods (not always practical ceramic methods) and aesthetics, in objects that we are all familiar with – plates and bowls.

What is the inspiration behind it – where did the idea come from?

I was reading a book called Waste and Want by Susan Strasser – it’s a social history of trash, and in it she spoke briefly about old household approaches to ceramic repair. I started to look more into it, trying out ideas I found in my studio, and through that looking into and testing conservation methods. It really just grew form there.

Which repair techniques are you using and why? 

I am a bit nomadic – I have always taken a multidisciplinary approach to my practice, using different materials and drawing techniques from different areas. I am really interested in combining different materials so metals and woods with ceramics, testing out different glues, constructive ways of using plastics, and so on. I also always go back to textiles and textile techniques – darning, patching, binding, stitching.

How did you learn the techniques you use in your work?

Some I learnt at home growing up, particularly the textile techniques and also making and using jigs to support my work. Others I have learnt through workshops and other lessons. But most I have taught myself. I was lucky enough to do a residency at the V&A Museum, where I watched and spoke to a lot of conservators – observing the practices and the objects. I learnt a lot there and came across a lot of techniques I wouldn’t have known about otherwise.

How do your repairs change the function or story of the object?

Sometimes they don’t – they just return it to form, and I like that. Other times the object becomes the carrier of the repair story, it is almost more about the repair than the original object (that is particularly true of my museum/exhibition displays). Ideally, we see the object back in some form of use, with its repair in dialogue with and part of its use story.

How visible or invisible is the repair and why is that important?

I am not intent on my work always being visible. For me invisible or as-invisible-as-possible repairs fit better with post-modern and late-neo-liberal ideas around perfection and aesthetics of commercial goods and clothing. However, this often depends on design. That said, I also really like visible repairs and a lot of my work is visible. I like the discussions they provoke, the stories they tell, and the authorship/signature they provide. I also think visibility helps with overall acceptance of repair as necessary, and it can be a political statement about how or when we chose to discard things. I am really interested in care, and visible repairs make visible the care applied to that object.

How have people reacted to this project or body of work? 

Overall positively, although I have had questions about the necessity of it when it can be cheaper to replace things. This is a really good discussion to have – one thing that is often overlooked in repair work is the idea of privilege – having things which are repairable, having the time/materials/tools to do the work, ideas around aspiration and social acceptance.

How do you feel opinions towards mending and repair are changing?

Slowly! But they are changing. I think there is a long way to go before it is a truly mainstream culture though.

What do you think the future holds for repair?

Hopefully lots of it. I think we will see more legislation around repair and waste. France has just shown one pathway by introducing a bonus scheme for people paying to have clothes repaired. And I hope we will see more education schemes around repair – training, apprenticeships, expansion of the conservation discourse, etc. This is starting through ideas like Team Repair who send out kits and tools for kids to learn about repair, but ideally it will also be present in schools, higher ed and so on too. I love mending things and I love seeing others enjoying it too.

You can find out more about Bridget Harvey and her work here