Pure Gold. Upcycled! Upgraded!

Bulky waste, trash, cheap materials: pure gold! At least in the eyes of many active designers. Pure Gold – Upcycled! Upgraded! explores the subject of rubbish. The focus is not on waste avoidance or exhortations to producers and consumers to recycle waste, but on processing waste to create new, valuable commodities.

10 Contributors

  • Clemens Wildt,

    Sabiha Keyif,

    Project Management ifa

  • Volker Albus, Germany

    Adélia Borges, Lateinamerika

    Tapiwa Matsinde, Subsahara-Afrika

    Divia Patel, Südasien

    Eggarat Wongcharit, Südostasien

    Zhang Jie, Ostasien

    Axel Kufus, Plattform & Workshops

    Studio Lapatsch|Unger, Plattform & Workshops

    Concept

About the exhibiton

This international exhibition project presents 76 objects by a new global generation of designers who think ecologically and act ethically and sustainably. Their solution approaches address a grave, global problem of the present-day: waste and its processing. Pictures of the oceans choked with garbage or gigantic rubbish
tips in remote regions of our planet are ubiquitous. In spite of the disastrous consequences for the global ecosystem, how waste is treated is only changing very slowly. Upcycling – the transforming of by-products, waste materials, useless, or unwanted products into new materials or products of high quality – enhances
awareness of alternative production methods and contemporary developments in design in Europe and elsewhere. The design objects utilize primary materials that are ostensibly inferior, combine very different objects in an unconventional way, or process unwanted by-products creatively.

The touring exhibition is complemented by the digital platform pure-gold.org where the exhibition can network with the local design scenes at the locations where the exhibition is shown. Local designers, artists, and students can engage under supervision in hands-on workshops with regionally developed upcycling
methods. The results will be integrated in the exhibition on site and will be available as “instructable videos” online as well as on show in the exhibition.

83 Artworks

Look at the Collection