Versa by Tom Fereday & Charlie White
On the occasion of the Melbourne Design Week, Tom Fereday and Charlie White present ‘Versa’, an exhibition showcasing a collection of unique furniture and architecture elements.
Versa, meaning to be ‘turned’ or ‘changed’ in Latin, is a collaborative series of installations using end-of-life materials. The exhibition showcases a collection of unique furniture and architectural elements, made by Tom Fereday & Charlie White respectively, tailored to the three spaces of the Meat Market Stables during Melbourne Design Week 2023.
Developed through a process of independent collaboration, Fereday and White have sought to create a series of works that explore the turning of end-of-life materials and the challenging of their perceived value.
With a self-imposed constraint to make only one design gesture each per room, works have been conceived as the transformation of a material into an interior element – seat, table, light, ceiling, wall & floor – and then designed to express a sensory quality – dark, light, soft, warm, sharp and hard.
The complementary contrasts of the two designers’ works in each room serve to create singularly harmonious spaces, an ode to the power of collaboration.
090423 by Charlie White
The 090423 screens are hinged totems of foam waste, sourced from the bags of polyurethane foam offcuts upholsterers and foam suppliers are left with and usually forced to dispose of.
Mounted onto hinged timber frames and covered in a black non-toxic waterproofing membrane paint, the screens are rendered for life in an interior. The homogenizing effect of the dark coating, reminiscent of the black lacquer of traditional Japanese screens, creates a landscape of form and void in space.
Layer by Tom Fereday
Layer is a series of unique, sculptural totem lights built upon experimentations with recycled porcelain. The sculptural lighting collection explores the by-product of slip-cast porcelain manufacturing processes, working with both recycled porcelain and seconds vessels, utilising large existing pieces from the Mud Australia collection.
The layer lights re-purpose seconds pieces with minor imperfections in the form of intricate stacked lighting totems. Each edition in the series is produced in unique heights and colours presented as a limited edition collection of collectable lighting developed in collaboration with Mud Australia Founder and Creative Director, Shelley Simpson.
Cloud by Charlie White
Foam is traditionally a material that lives its life hidden. When light is shone through it, the luminance of old foam imbues the material with a quality similar to marble or alabaster - thinness and thickness in the material creating a warm glow. Exploiting this quality, the Cloud chandeliers are hanging collages of dissected mattress foam: elevated and transformed to create a warmth when looked at, the hanging assemblages allow a discarded material to shine.
Mano by Tom Fereday
Mano represents a celebration of the unique enduring beauty of hand cast recycled glass. Presented in the form of a limited edition series of sculptural tables the Mano series is comprised of 70 percent recycled glass and 30 per cent quartz sand, cast by hand resulting in a raw, unique textured lustre.
Through the hand cast process each piece is unique with ripples and variation derived from the pouring process and glass. The modular forms act to celebrate the purity of the material and unique optical properties of glass, developed in collaboration with Eco Outdoor.
Spear by Charlie White
Spear is the effort to create a modular system of interior objects from readily available waste. Built from old couch cushions skewered together with steel threaded rod, these are then coated in natural rubber latex.
As well as establishing a surface tension across the skewered sections, the rubber becomes the final finish, protecting the object from wear and tear whilst protecting the user from the stains of the cushions’ previous lives.
Cove by Tom Fereday
Cove series are a solid recycled cast aluminum chair, lounge and table cast entirely from locally sourced recycled aluminum machine waste. Re-purposed from local Sydney machining industry the forms traditionally sand cast developed from obsolete solid timber prototypes from our studio to form casting moulds, allowing a reinterpretation of the Cove range as limited edition sculptural cast aluminum series.
The raw cast frames are contrasted by mirror polished surfaces that celebrate the natural beauty of Aluminum complimented by soft recycled aniline leather. Cove is an experimentation with the process of traditional sand casting based upon our timber cove lounge developed for Nau Design.
Collaboration supported by Cult Design, Mud Australia & Eco Outdoor. Pictures by Pier Carthew (unless specified).
