Curated by Bridget Harvey, Michael Hurley, Karen Richmond and Maiko TsutsumiThe Department of Repair explores (re)making through fixing, repairing and mending. The project reframes the theme of ‘repair’, exploring its identities and its potential as an environmentally/socially engaged practice. The project aims to create space for broader interpretations of repairing, fixing and/or mending practice, exploring categories such as repair narratives, agents, materials, and methods/systems.
The project begins with an exhibition which showcases approaches to mending, guides and tools of repair. For the first three weeks, visiting (re)makers, (re)designers and repairers, who demonstrate and teach repair and re-making skills will run drop-in workshops. Outcomes from the workshops will be then added to the existing set of exhibits to form a larger exhibition. A two-part publication will complement the project with writings by and about the repairers and exhibits involved in the project.
With a fully zero waste aim for the project and accompanying publication, The Department of Repair will engage with the act/notion of repair more through reuse of materials, as a form of recycling with less environmental impact. All furniture for the exhibition is being made from reclaimed materials and will be distributed for further use or dismantled back into materials after the exhibition. The publication, which documents the entire process of the project is being hand printed onto reclaimed paper, and will be produced on demand in small batches to avoid large waste quantities at the end of the project