Makerversity Presents: Reimagined Possessions with Clara Chu

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12pm - 5:00pm (drop-in throughout if you can't do the full event!)

Saturday 14th September 2024

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Join handbag designer and artist Clara Chu for a unique up-cycling workshop at the London Design Festival with Makerversity. Transform discarded everyday household and industrial items into stylish accessories without sewing. Clara will demonstrate binding techniques and showcase her handcrafted bags. Throughout the workshop, Participants will learn deconstruction and construction techniques while exploring repurposed designs, using provided materials or their own unwanted household items. Join us for a sustainable journey of reinventing the ordinary and making the most of limited resources !

Participants are encouraged to bring discarded household items. We will also use unclaimed lost and found items from Somerset House visitors— items that have remained unclaimed for an extended period, and materials from Makerversity’s resources. Clara will demonstrate working with unconventional materials, like combining a shower curtain with a toothbrush holder or using telephone wire as threads. The workshop covers bag construction basics and how to categorise our discarded objects into functional parts of the bags, such as the main body, handle, and fastening components.

A unique feature of this workshop is its narrative element. Participants will imagine the former owners of the items they repurpose, adding a character-building aspect to their designs and giving lost possessions a new life. Participants will select objects and receive an "ID tag" to create a fictional character who might have owned the item. For example, a funky hot pink beanie hat with cat graphics might have belonged to an adventurous writer who travels the world, performing poetry on mountain tops. With this character in mind, participants might add a toothbrush as a handle or a shower caddy to store a water bottle, making the bag suitable for their character's adventures.

At the end, they’ll attach the ID tag to their finished product, symbolically returning the item to its imagined owner. This workshop emphasises the importance of designing with intention and narrative, highlighting the stories behind everyday objects. It aims to raise awareness about the communal care for people’s belongings and the social implications of missing possessions.

10 recommended categories of objects from home to gather:

- Toothbrushes

- Broken parts of electronics: cables, plugs, earphones, game controllers.

- Home recycling: cereal boxes, crisp packets, cardboard food packaging, shoe boxes, disposable cutleries

- Old toys: board games, card games, assorted components from board games, stuffed animals

- Old books, magazines, children’s books, greetings cards - Sponges: kitchen/ shower/ make up)

- Textiles: old jeans, curtains, table cloths, socks, old clothes, gloves (mittens, oven gloves, gardening gloves, sports gloves), mi- cro fibre cleaning cloths, cushions, blankets, carpets, bedsheets, towels - Strings: ropes, shoe laces, bungee cords, embroidery threads, chains - Clips: paper clips, bulldog clips, laundry pegs

- Food storage: Biscuit tins, Tupperware containers, reusable water bottles

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Clara Chu is a London-based multidisciplinary artist and designer whose namesake brand specialises in fashion accessories that redefine the ordinary. Clara’s work uniquely blends everyday domestic mundanity with vibrant pop art, transforming discarded household items like mops, toasters, and toothbrushes into wearable accessories. By merging mass production with hand-craftsmanship, she creates visionary products that challenge conventional fashion norms, advocate for change, and promote awareness about waste through education. Follow her here.

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On the day of the event guests will be picked from the New Wing reception of Somerset House. This is based on Lancaster Place, following on from Waterloo Bridge. If lost please do call 07749506915

Address: Makerversity, New Wing, Somerset House, London, WC2R 1LA

Host or Publisher Makerversity London