Przetwory 5 – 2010, Soho Factory

The fifth edition of PRZETWORY, one of the most popular Polish events in the area of design, ecology and recycling, came to an end two days ago. During the weekend over 4000 Warsaw people attended PRZETWORY in the SOHO FACTORY 25 Mińska St. in Warsaw. They came to admire and to buy works created ‘live’ by more than two hundred artists participating in the event.

For young designers, PRZETWORY is an opportunity to face the issue of recycling and present their works to a wider audience. They also get a chance to sell their works, such as clothes, accessories, lamps, furniture, amusing and creative gadgets. This year’s edition was no exception. As usual, a competition with awards for most attractive designs was held as part of PRZETWORY.

This year’s fifth edition of Creative Recycling Initiative PRZETWORY was an INTERNATIONAL event. With the support of Culture Institutes from England, Netherlands, France, Spain and Lithuania, the organisers invited to Warsaw designers and project teams from these countries, such as Dutch team Refunc, Spanish Basurama, British El Ultimo GRITO/EUG Studio, Mantas Lesauskas from Lithuania, Tom Price from Great Britain. During PRZETWORY, a group of students from Royal College of Art held workshops together with the students from Department of Design at the Academy of Fine Arts – PG13 group.

OUR INTERNATIONAL GUESTS held special lectures on their concepts of how to combine recycling with design and came up with some designs:

EL ULTIMO GRITO (GREAT BRITAIN ) A prototype of a movie theater, which is supposed to be soon implemented on a large scale by the group as an outdoor cinema. Cinema screens take the form of canopies which can provide shelter on summer days.

MANTAS LESAUSKAS (LITHUANIA ) A series of furniture inspired by a bitter sweet nostalgia after the “commie” times. A clash between refinement of an elegant piece of furniture and crudeness of a car tyre. Rather an experiment than a prototype.

ANTONIO SCARPONI (ITALY ) “The Lonely Socks Show” – i.e. the socks’ afterlife- series of couple of minute-long shorts featuring socks as leading characters. “There are always problems with odd socks, which lost their other halves under mysterious circumstances, in dark recesses of wardrobes and washing machines. I decided to offer them a chance for an afterlife in a spotlight”. Antonio Scarponi is currently working on a set of guidelines on how to transform objects, assign other functions to them, e.g. how to turn a hoodie into a laptop bag, baby sling or a cushion, or how pages from old magazines can be converted into a wallet or an envelope.

TOM PRICE (GREAT BRITAIN ) A wall made of polypropylene pipes, consisting of small segments which can be arranged into preferred patterns. Both a device for dividing and assigning space and an art object.

BASURAMA (SPAIN ) A series of octagons- pieces of furniture and toys at the same time; one is a swing, another helps to relax, yet another can be used for climbing. The project was born of the artists’s two main passions, to design the smallest possible, functional living space and to create toys for those who deep down still feel like big kids.

REFUNC (NETHERLANDS ) A small house. Or maybe a bar? Refunc artists are against embellishment of reality and they are fascinated by everything which offers a possibility to accentuate structure. Ideal house according to Refunc is deprived of any decorative elements, its structure however is visible , including the building materials. Environmentally friendly Refunc would most likely design a house made solely of waste materials.

On 12 December 2010 the jury of PRZETWORY 5 made up of :

Fabio Cavallucci, head of CSW (Centre for Contemporary Art),

Małgorzata Szczepańska, editor-in-chief of a Polish edition of Elle Decoration,

Wanda Modzelewska (Profundo PR design consultant),

Agnieszka Kowalska (Gazeta Wyborcza journalist specializing in culture) ,

Attilio Maranzano, photographer,

Michael Okraj (designer, curator, owner of Designerdeutsch design studio),

Tomek Rygalik (designer, lecturer at Royal College of Art in London and at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw ),

Anthony Lebossé from a French 5.5 Designers group, international recycling celebrity (www.cinqcinqdesigners.com)

and event organizers: Monika Brzywczy, Ania Czarnota, Marta Wójcicka awarded the 1st prize or PRZETWÓR ROKU (Recycled Object of the Year) title to:

students of the Royal College of Art, Juwei Huang and Tongtong Ren for a screen made of wooden components of bed support frames and jars – a truly sophisticated and poetic design, the mobility of which strongly impressed the jurors.

and ex aequo:

Jakub Sobiepanek and Robert Pludra, graduates of department of design at the Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts for a design of an extremely comfortable and visually striking armchair made of plastic barrels and for a chair made of cardboard packagings for fluorescent lamps- a very stable and thought-out construction in spite of an apparent flimsiness of materials used.

The winning works awarded with the 1st Prize were created “live” during the event. Apart form the in-kind prize, Polish winners also received the possibility to have their furniture designs introduced in a product line (funded by Paged Meble company).

Judges highly commended :

Kasia Kempa and Stanisław Czarnocki (Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts) for a design of a home entertainment system – a seat made of a car bonnet and wooden planks, fixed to the wall with wire ropes.

James Thompson (RCA) for a series of prototypes of furniture made of pieces of wood- based planks and boards (desk, support frame for a laptop, easels) based on an amazingly simple however original construction concept.

Joanna Piaścik (www.piascik.eu) and Paweł Gromada for a design of a little table with a lamp; the latter shines with light whenever the bicycle wheel attached to the tabletop is put in motion. The project was inspired by an already iconic ready-made object by Marcel Duchamp .

Ludzie Dobrej Roboty (“Fine Jobbers”) or Michał Ławniczak for a design of media players and speakers made of Lego bricks (they DO work !).

Razy2 design team (www.razy2.com) or Paulina Krauza and Jacek Ryń for a tuffet made of rolled up clothes which has a huge narrative and customization potential and for a simple in construction however visually attractive table made of pieces of wood.

Marek Mielnicki (www.mielnickidesign.com) for a unique concept of a radio receiver made of the insides of a vintage classic valve radio receiver and a modern, tailor- made minimalistic casing.

Marta Skuza (www.martaskuza.blogspot.com) for a collection of women clothing made of second hand men shirts.

Nominated for awards were:

Beza Projekt (www.bezaprojekt.pl) and Tryktrak atelier for information boards made of carpenter waste featuring such messages as ” Do not spill water” , ” Take a bag with you”, “Crush the trash”, “Save the light”.

Małgorzata Dzierżewicz, Katarzyna Jędrasik, Emanuel Franz i Mateusz Przybysz for creative recycling of film tapes and constructing a stall made of this material.

Thecaraccident group for lamps made of recycled scrap car lamps.

Wzorowo group (www.wzorowo.com) for a laptop casing converted into a handy portable vanity table.

Exhibition of the above works will take place in January in the SOHO FACTORY at 25 Mińska St.

This year PRZETWORY were held in a post-industrial lounge area on the premises of SOHO FACTORY at 25 Mińska St. Over 200 artists attended the event which had approximately 4000 visitors within two days.