Author(s): Vladimir ARKHIPOV

Design

In this second volume of home-made artifacts, 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. His archive includes hundreds of objects created with idiosyncratic functional qualities: an Austrian ski-bob made using an old bicycle frame, and a device from Germany that enables a musician to play three brass tubas at once. Featuring 230 individual artifacts from Albania, Austria, Czech Republic, England, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Russia, Spain, Switzerland, Ukraine and Wales, accompanied by a photograph of the creator, their story of how the object came about, its function and the materials used to create it. The book is an essential companion to the first volume by the same author, expanding its theme. Here the objects are more recent, suggesting that the home-made phenomenon transcends simple necessity. Many have been made in pursuit of a hobby, or because the maker had the time and inclination to construct something personal. But with others (in Albania for example) the objects feel like they might be more vital to the makers livelihood.

Home-Made Europe: Contemporary folk artifacts by Vladimir Arkhipov
If you like poking around at auctions or in second-hand shops and at the recycling centre at the dump (lovingly referred to as 'Mitre 11' by some) for odd contraptions, or if you are even a maker of DIY solutions, you will enjoy Home-Made Europe. In this illustrated book, the author Vladimir Arkhipov from Ryazan has travelled across Europe seeking examples of idiosyncratic objects. On each page of this book, an object is presented with an accompanying photograph of the maker and text explaining the purpose of the object. The objects themselves as a photo essay are compelling, but it is in the text that the passion for making, for creating from scratch or for cannibalising other objects, and the pleasure and pride in creating a successful and useful object is revealed. Some things will be familiar - examples of Go-Karts made from old prams, bits of wood and odds and ends - others will be bizarrely ingenious. A fire-fuelled heater made from old pipes and an engine from an old wall-mounted air-conditioning unit that looks like something you might find in a scrap pile but can, in fact, heat water. A Ski-Bob made from a bicycle frame, some chunks of wood and parts of a ski. An oddly leaning ladder of welded together pieces of scrap metal initially for cutting back vines - the ladder looks as though it would hardly stand let alone take a person’s weight.  A grill made from a cluster of tea candles huddled beneath a tangle of wire which is a work in progress for cooking a corn cob (adjustments are required): “ It doesn’t taste so good, it tastes like it’s not completely cooked.” Delightfully made, the aesthetic of these objects is clumsy, quirky and oddly appealing, reminding us that there is a place for the home-made, for folk art in a time of slick, mass production.
{STELLA}