From Now to Eternity is an exhibition of plastic objects by designers including FAT, Tomoko Azumi, Stuart Haygarth and Committee, which opens in London this week.

The pieces on show have been commissioned by Arts Co. Top image: Musical Chair by Committee, 2008. Above: Fleece Chair by Tom Price, 2008.

“Plastic is a celebrative material as it has provided a vision of an exciting future since its discovery and we would not have same affluent life without it,” says designer Hiroko Shiratori. Above and below: Plastic Nostalgia by Raw Edges, 2008.

“However, it has certainly created cultural and environmental issues. While respecting the material and the culture developed around it, I would like to create awareness of what the material is and what we might end up with playing around the idea of ‘future fossil.’” Below: Future Fossil by Hiroko Shiratori, 2008.

The exhibition will be open 19 September – 19 October. Below: Classical-bust stool by FAT, 2008.

All images courtesy Arts Co and the artist.

The following information is from Arts Co:

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From Now To Eternity
Plastic in design

From Now To Eternity is a celebration of and debate around design, with a focus on one material: plastic. Below: Inflated Chair by Rolf Sachs, 2008.

Plastic is with us virtually from now to eternity: impervious to bacteria, acid, salt, rust, breakage and, in some cases, able to withstand heat, plastic is something of a miracle substance. One hundred years ago, when it was first invented, no one could have anticipated that plastic would present one of our biggest recycling challenges. Below: Millennium chandelier by, Stuart Haygarth, 2004.

Pioneering arts consultancy Arts Co is commissioning ten leading contemporary designers and design collectives to celebrate plastic through their work and look at ways to re-think our growing mountains of discarded plastic. Their ingenious creations will be on display at From Now To Eternity, an exhibition launching during the 2008 London Design Festival and continuing through Frieze Art Fair, at the Biscuit Building in London’s East End. Below: Fandangos by Committee, 2008.

The designers will show how plastic’s versatility – transparent or opaque, hard or pliant, able to take on a myriad of colours and forms – can serve their creativity. Below: Periscope by Committee, 2008.

Committee, Stuart Haygarth, Raw Edges and FAT take a witty, playful and imaginative approach: Committee will build on their improbable towers of household objects to create extraordinary designs, while Haygarth’s ebullient plastic chandelier is made from 1,000 exploded party poppers. Below: writing block by Committee, 2008.

Tomoko Azumi’s minimal, yet highly sensual work, Tom Price’s sculptural aesthetic and award-winning collective Troika, renowned for their pioneering use of technology, reveal the subtler possibilities of the medium. Below: Shaker Furniture by Tomoko Azumi, 2008.

Rolf Sachs’ original and provocative take on the possibilities for plastic establishes a new dialogue with a sometime reviled material. Shanghai-based WOKmedia are particularly keen to respond to this brief since China has become the recycling centre of the world, while Japanese designer Hiroko Shiratori will explore the indestructibility of plastic objects to create what she has called the ‘fossils of the future’, thus giving them a new value.

Hiroko Shiratori – “Plastic is a celebrative material as it has provided a vision of an exciting future since its discovery and we would not have same affluent life without it. However, it has certainly created cultural and environmental issues. While respecting the material and the culture developed around it, I would like to create awareness of what the material is and what we might end up with playing around the idea of ‘future fossil.”

Committee – “In the 20th century, plastics have offered the consumer a most colourful dance indeed. Their adaptability has brought practical and aesthetic progress in every sphere of life but they have, through their affordability, occasioned a huge quantity of useless things and waste and their ensuing effects on the environment could be described, to say the least, as a foolish act. We are therefore aiming to produce a work that is both an homage to this extraordinary material and a critique of the way it has been employed.”

Talks Programme
The ‘From Now To Eternity’ talks programme will include:

• The Development of Design – ‘More than a substance, plastic is the very idea of its infinite transformation’ (Roland Barthes). Includes a look at the ten biggest steps forward in design
• The Environmental Question – in the footsteps of scientific researchers, designers, manufacturers, architects and big business are examining sustainability & recycling
• The Role of Creativity in Driving Discourse
• Mine for Eternity – five opinion formers choose the object they’d like to have ‘for eternity’.

19th September – 19th October 2008

Biscuit Building
10 Redchurch Street
London E2

Opening Hours: Wednesday to Friday 2-6, Saturday to Sunday 12-6 or by appointment