‘Our enormously productive economy demands we make consumption a way of life’.

This is a quote from 1955 on the wall of an exhibition now showing at the Lightbox Gallery in Woking.

A toilet brush is the unlikely centre-piece of the exhibition.  Its description reads ‘This is a well designed toilet brush from Addis bought in the late ‘80’s when our house was built, and still as good as new! It still performs perfectly…. it has probably been used over 30,000 times…. (This brush has been very thoroughly cleaned!)
The exhibition ‘Waste Not…’ runs (free) until 8thApril at the gallery (30 mins on the train from Clapham Junction or Wimbledon).  It is an exhibition of old appliances and other objects that are still used – or at least have been kept in the hope of being used!  
It shows the objects themselves and short films of their owners talking about them.  It’s all about maintaining things – it is the anti-upgrading exhibition! 

On 28th March, the South London Makerspace and Restart Project held a fixing and mending workshop at the gallery where they showed members of the local community how to fix their electrical and electronic items, sharpen old saws and tools and mend self-assembly furniture with new parts printed on a 3-D printer!

If you are interested in getting involved locally with mending, fixing or making – or just have something you’d like to fix – come along to our Tooting Restart Project workshops  at Mushkil Aasaan, 220 – 222 Upper Tooting Road, SW17 7EW (next to Nandos)
Sat 25th April – 2.30 – 5.30
Sat 11th July – 2.30 – 5.30
Sat 26th September – 2.30 – 5.30