Ben Branagan's sculptural vases

Sculptural Vases With Scholarly Origins

Among our 30-something friends, collaging is suddenly all the rage. (Maybe it’s the new adult coloring book?) But to our minds, there’s another use for old books and papers that consistently produces a far more beautiful result: paper pulp, which has popped up on this site more than once. It’s what CHIAOZZA’s charming Lump Nubbins are made of, and it’s the base ingredient in both Silo Studio’s PPPPP bowls and Lauren Clay’s sinewy sculptures. The newest project to employ the recycled material is Ben Branagan‘s Monuments series, which debuted last night in a window installation at our favorite London shop, Darkroom. For Monuments, Branagan, a designer and professor in visual communications, transformed the pulped remains of deaccessioned library books into a series of totemic, distinctly non-functional pots and vases. (You can imagine what might ensue if you actually poured water into them.) The forms are made in molds, their shapes inspired by everything from vernacular architecture to science fiction. Standing on spindly tripod legs or holding their arms up in the air, they seem anthropomorphic, and maybe even friendly. On view until March 4. 

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