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Walking-Chair Design Studio, "Bottleboy"
Creatives from three European cities come together to highlight the serious problem of pollution in the mighty Danube river as part of the Ponton gallery’s environmentally conscious exhibition ‘The Blue…Is Green’.
Sadly, much like the Thames, the Danube is considered by many to be a dumping ground for general waste. Discarded crisp packets, sweet wrappers and bottles are common sightings, seen floating along the top of the water. Luckily, Vienna based designers Karl Emilio Pircher and Fidel Peugeot (aka Walking-Chair Design) have found a new use for plastic bottles once their original purpose has been filled. The two have masterminded ‘Bottleboy’ a simple coat-rack device made from discarded PET bottles. Users can bend the bottle using a hairdryer and fill them with any colourful objects before screwing them into the wall fastener. Hopefully we’ll start to see less bottles floating in the water and more on our walls!
Gábor Miklós Szőke, "The Last Sturgeon"
The amount of pollution in the water, along with other human activities has also caused the once abundant wildlife in the Danube to die out. Hungarian artist Gábor Miklós Szőke has created a large sculptural tribute to the sturgeon, the largest species of fish to ever live in the river. The dirty materials and fractured skin of the fish serve as a reminder to the unnatural way this species is being driven to extinction.
Daniel Pošta and Zdeněk Vacek, "Danube Porcelain"
Due to the amount of pollution in the river, the colour of the water is constantly changing. To create their set of porcelain plates, Prague based designers Daniel Pošta and Zdeněk Vacek took swatch samples from Google Map images of the Danube, using the colours to illustrate the surfaces with Rococo patterns. The set documents the colours of the Danube as you travel from region to region, from the river’s source to the mouth.
‘The Blue… Is Green’ runs from 5th October – 5th November 2011 at the Ponton Gallery, 65-67 Batthyány utca, Budapest 1015
Budapest Design Week Website.
Ponton Gallery Website.
