Cutlery set – immaterial recycling #conceptual #speculative #product

The project deals with and questions the mostly western socialized understanding that a product is only considered high-quality as long as it remains unused. An inconsistently combined cutlery set with its immaterial values gained over time of use is recycled, used over decades from only one person of my family as “cutlery for everything.” Why can’t a person’s personal form of use also serve as a blueprint for a new cutlery concept?

The handles of the spoon and fork match in shape and show signs of use on the bowl and prongs – caused by rubbing against dishes. The small knife has a plastic handle and stainless steel blade and is actually a garden knife – the large one looks as if it has a hollow handle. The knives have been resharpened many times. 

The recycled cutlery set does not recycle the material in the traditional sense, but rather the immaterial values such as recontextualization as a new combination and the signs of use. The design questions a traditional way of designing everyday cutlery. Instead of thinking in terms of formal analogy, this set was reproduced on the basis of a single personal story. It is 3D-scanned, stamped in CAD, and then reproduced in stainless steel using conventional manufacturing methods. The small garden knife with its original plastic handle is thus also transformed into a solid knife made of stainless steel as the only material. The set shows its unity in the story based on its use and not on common formal lines.

The cutlery set is one part of the project “Industrial Phenomena” that examines how the industrial production system might has shaped our ways of thinking and judging through paradigms found in everyday phenomena like objects and narratives.

Here you will find a textual reflection on the concept of this project: Link.