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repair manifesto is a force!

Platform21calls themselves a design platform (“curiously exploring”, “strangely optimistic”) but other people call them change agents, and that definitely describes them. Witness their latest project, Repair Manifesto. In eloquent, energizing statements, it expounds the coolness of repair. (Check out #5 and #7.) It has hit a nerve, racing through the internet like wildfire.

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bruce mau’s incomplete manifesto for growth

Anne Johnson alerted us to the extraordinary ‘Incomplete Manifesto for Growth that legendary designer and visionary Bruce Mau wrote in 1998: 43 powerful principles and practices. We’ve bolded our favorites: Allow events to change you. You have to be willing to grow. Growth is different from something that happens to you. You produce it. You…

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paolo goldstein on how repair can be a way into creativity

(Video link here.) Paulo Goldstein sees himself as a craftsman in his approach to repair. It seems to us, he has the viewpoint of an artist, and certainly his repairs reflect a rare sensibility. We found this short video incredibly illuminating, for the many levels of living he addresses. Here’s the gist, but there’s way…

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kintsugi: the artful repair of damaged things

Our favorite column at the very cerebral blog Design Observer is John Foster’s Accidental Mysteries, compilations of photographs around a theme. This week’s post focuses on the Japanese tradition of  kintsugi — the artful repairing of damaged objects, and illustrates the beauty of broken and repaired things. This 18th century carved wooden bowl being sold at David Bell antiques is being described…

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repaired stuff as back-up resource

This old pair of headphones still worked but one stem had broken. Rather than toss them, we asked our friend and sometimes assistant Tara Mann if she would do a visually-pleasing repair. Which she did, using colored electrician’s tape. We keep these old phones as back-ups to our regular ones, and find ourselves pulling them out…

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the fixer’s collective: improvisational mending + fixing

The Fixer’ Collective started last fall as workshop in a year-long exhibition called “Mend” at the Proteus Gowanus Gallery in Brooklyn. When the exhibition ended in June, the collective continued, meeting every Thursday evening at the gallery. It’s an adhoc community group with a simple premise: you bring broken objects to fix (or to get help fixing),…

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Tricia Hersey’s Radical Nap Ministry: “Rest is Resistance”

During a particularly stressful and exhausting time in her life, Tricia Hersey had an epiphany: She started napping where ever she had a few moments. It was transformative and led her to research the idea of rest as a healing mechanism and form of resistance against societal oppression. It would become her ministry, and she The Nap Bishop.

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