The Repair Workshops- State of Design Event 2011

WORKS   MEDIA

The Repair Workshops was an event held as part of the 2011 State of Design Festival, Melbourne, Australia. It brought together 4 pairs of technically minded and creative people to explore innovative, hands-on ways to repair, re-purpose and re-imagine broken objects.

The project aimed to spark public interest in how notions of ‘repair’ might help tackle some of the urgent environmental issues we face today. It is about thinking beyond our throwaway society, and coming up with inspiring re-inventions that challenge our ideas of value and waste. Also to restart the once common practice of repairing old, worn or broken goods.

Over the course of 3 days, 3 tonnes of salvaged rubbish was gone through and repaired or reimagined by each repair team. Over the course of the weekend, individual repair sessions were held with the public, with some 75+ repairs being completed.

Photo credit: Jo Duck

The Repair Workshops were co-ordinated by project directors Emma Grace (The Treasury) and Leyla Acaroglu (Eco Innovators).

The original inspiration for the project, was Platform21‘s ‘Repair Manifesto‘.

On the repair team was Dylan Martorell, Jason Bond, Yvette King, Scott Mitchell, Will Campbell, Lizzy Sampson, Tim Denshire-Key, and Gregory Crocetti.

Massive thanks to Brotherhood Green, City of Melbourne,  Fernando de Sousa, Jo Duck, Environment Victoria, Donkeywheel House and Vinnies for their help with the project too!