Website:  MADE Radiant Dark

Imagination in product design where function of an object can shape its form can be simple or complex.  Ordinary household objects such as a lamp, chair, carpet, spoon, shelf are given new intriguing twists in this design show by MADE 'Radiant Dark Elegant Corruptions'.  Barr Gilmore's 'Shinny Blue & Shinny Red' is a lamp made with several hockey sticks standing and pointing out with the light from within its column shape.  For hockey fanatics, this lamp would be a collectors item.  We DJA 'Bench' has 2 wood chairs joined at the middle missing the center legs making them seem less sturdy for sitting on.  Bev Hisey's 'Dirty Dishes Influenza (Series of ‘Pitre Dish’ Carpets)' are   multicoloured enlargements of lab dishes microorganisms in carpet form and stepping on them may be infectious.  Annie Tung's 'Love Spoons' has a braille poem embossed on the metal spoon to be read by tongue.  For lovers who enjoy feeding each other, this would make a wonderful sensuous gift.  Jeremy Hatch's 'Accident' shelf has a young boy who urinated in a puddle at his feet which does happen to young kids without toilet training.  The ordinary becomes extraordinary or strange to the viewer and user.  The artist designers provoke thoughts that make one puzzle at objects which seem familiar and used at home but are now intriguing and disturbing to view and use.  Who can sit on a chair with missing legs, or stand on a carpet that symbolizes infections, or put something on a shelf where an embarassing accident has occurred?  Things are taken out of their boring function and form and given a more disturbing meaning behind that would make each impossible to ignore and taken for granted as a household object!  If these were mass produced for Walmart or Canadian Tire, consumers would be uncomfortable in their own homes.  But as show pieces in a gallery, these designer samples are worth scrutinizing so that when you return home, the same objects would be a relief in their boring simplicity.