POETICS OF DESIGN

Design research goes well beyond the functional aspects of repairability, suggesting a new aesthetic of imperfection, or actively involving users in the production, repair and modification of objects.

Things Come Apart

Todd McLellan
Canada, 2011

all images copyright Todd McLellan

Images of old radios, clocks and typewriters from the mechanical age, shot after they have been dismantled piece by piece, subdivided by type, size and function, and then reorganized one by one by photographer Todd McLellan with the precision of an entomologist, in keeping with a new aesthetic of disassembly. McLellan’s experiments with taking things apart began when he was a teenager; in 2011 his first photographs of the process were made, the “Disassembly Series” that provides the material, along with other images, for the book “Things Come Apart”, published in 2013, Thames & Hudson edition.
www.todmclellan.com