Every year for the past 11 years Sir Terence Conran "has sent a notable figure from the world of design on a 30,000 pound ($54,000) shopping spree." This year 33-year-old English designer, sculptor and architect Thomas Heatherwick was given US$54 thousand dollars to buy "things [he'd] like to live with." His purchases of offbeat objects are on display at London's Design Museum. I wonder if he gets to keep the stuff? (Shown here: a welders mask from Hoodlum Welding Gear)
Upstairs on a recent afternoon, people strolled past aisles of individually lighted boxes containing such items as a life-size glass "wine rifle" and a "rum sword" loaded with their namesakes. Christian chewing gum with a prayer on every wrapper. Edible peanut-shaped packing material. A urinal with a sink where the water tank usually is. A biodegradable papier mache coffin. Japanese eyelid glue. Oven mitts for Kosher Jews. A compass for pointing praying Muslims toward Mecca. Yorkshire tea made for London hard water. An organ donor T-shirt.
LinkNick Douglas sez: I found out where Heatherwick's items will go. A 2002 Independent article says this: "Every year, Sir Terence Conran chooses a guest curator to spend £30,000 on 'things you'd like to live with' to be exhibited at the Design Museum, London. These items become part of the Conran Foundation Collection, which conserves and records the cream of 20th and 21st-century design."
