Home-Made Europe: Contemporary Folk Artifacts - Hardcover

Arkhipov, Vladmir; FUEL

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0956896235 ISBN 13: 9780956896230

Publisher: FUEL Publishing, 2012

Synopsis

For this enchanting sequel to the critically acclaimed Home-Made: Contemporary Russian Folk Artifacts (2006), Russian artist Vladimir Arkhipov has travelled across Europe to further his collection. The objects he has found are made by everyday people inspired to create something themselves, rather than buying manufactured goods. Many have been made in pursuit of a hobby, or because the maker had the time and inclination to construct something personal. In other cases, the objects are more vital to the maker’s livelihood. Arkhipov’s archive includes hundreds of objects created with idiosyncratic functional qualities: an Austrian ski-bob made using an old bicycle frame; a metal strip full of spikes used to deter pigeons from landing on window ledges; a beautifully painted rocking-motorbike for children; and a device from Germany that enables a musician to play three brass tubas at once. This volume features 230 individual artifacts from Albania, Austria, Czech Republic, England, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Russia, Spain, Switzerland, Ukraine and Wales, each of which is accompanied by a photograph of the creator, their story of how the object came about, its function and the materials used to create it. With a foreword by Turner Prize-winning artist Jeremy Deller, Home-Made Europe is an essential companion to the first volume, expanding its theme with more recent objects that suggest that the charm of the home-made utilitarian object transcends even the dictates of necessity.

About this title

Review:

Across 256 pages, this small but enlightening anthology brings together such DIY "products" as an outdoor shower assembled from school bus doors; and a makeshift table topped with a street sign, which looks as if it belongs in a hipster loft. (David Dick-Agnew Azure)

The objects we buy are supposed to tell us something about who we are. But they don't tell us half as much as the objects we make, as even a quick flick through Home-Made Europe: Contemporary Folk Artifacts reveals. Here are everyday things people have fashioned with their own hands. Heaters, hammers, anchors, rat-traps, barbecues, showers and goalposts. They range from the pitiful – a child's grill for corn on the cob, rigged out of wires bent over tea lights – to the technically impressive – one man made a fridge. This is a catalogue of human resourcefulness. (Justin McGuirk The Guardian)

Home-made Europe, by Vladimir Arkhipov, is a humble tribute to home-spun DIY. The Russian artist criss-crossed Europe to find ordinary people who have addressed their household needs with extraordinary inventions, often involving bits of other household objects. (Editors Wallpaper*)

About this edition

• Publisher: FUEL Publishing
• Publication date: 2012
• ISBN 10: 0956896235
• ISBN 13: 9780956896230
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 272
• Editor: Murray Damon, Sorrell Stephen