WOOD at 100% Design

Bird Feeder, Nina Tolstrup, 2008

The Crafts Council in collaboration with TEN and twentytwentyone present WOOD: an exhibition launching at 100% Design from 18-21 September 2008 at Earls Court, London.

TEN returns to 100% Design for a third successive year with WOOD, a new project on sustainable and ethical design. TEN has worked with design retailer twentytwentyone to produce a range of sustainable wooden products for the home or garden. Following its showing at 100% Design, the Crafts Council is supporting a national tour of the exhibition, enabling more people to see how sustainable design can still be beautiful.

TEN is a group of ten designers who are united through the shared vision of Chris Jackson. They collaborate once a year to create products that reflect the TEN ethos; that is, to take a responsible approach to design that offers a timely antidote to society’s high levels of consumption and throw-away culture. TEN is;

• Tomoko Azumi
• Stephen Bretland
• Carl Clerkin
• Gitta Gschwendtner
• Chris Jackson
• Sam Johnson
• Michael Marriott
• Hector Serrano
• Onkar Singh Kular
• Nina Tolstrup

In 2008 TEN wanted to produce something real, affordable and accessible in order to move their vision from a conceptual framework, as shown in 10 TEN X in 2006 and TEN AGAIN in 2007, to reality. The result is WOOD, featuring;

• Nina Tolstrup has created a ‘frame’ bird feeder that responds to the rarity of spotting the wildlife with which we co-exist in urban areas. The idea for the bird feeder was to create a product which encourages interaction and serves to capture a fleeting moment by framing it.
• Sam Johnson’s toy dumper truck uses a standard plastic racking box as its container on the back, meaning that the colour can be changed and it also continues to have a life once the toy has been outgrown.
• Gitta Gschwendtner created a toy to be enjoyed by adults and children in order to give the product a greater life span. The car playfully hints at having ended up wedged underneath a door accidentally, telling a story beyond pure function.

For more information and electronic images please contact Jill Read in the Crafts Council Press Office on Tel: +44 (0) 20 7806 2549, Email: media@craftscouncil.org.uk

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Notes to Editors

• For further information about the touring venues and dates of WOOD and information on the Crafts Council visit www.craftscouncil.org.uk

• Items from WOOD will be available to buy from twentytwentyone

• TEN’s first project, 10 TEN X, in 2006, illustrated their view on the subject of sustainability within London. Working within 10km radius of their studio, with a budget of ten pounds, twentytwentyone said of the resulting products, “creative concepts, responsible perspectives and a tremendous dose of humanity”. 10 TEN X won a Blueprint/100% Design awards for ‘Best Contribution’. TEN’s second project, TEN AGAIN, in 2007, continued with the theme of sustainability.

• The Crafts Council is the national development agency for contemporary crafts and aims to position the UK as the best place in the world for making, seeing and collecting contemporary craft.

• The Crafts Council is supported by Arts Council England