Utility to Futility

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Utility to Futility explores how the form and materiality of objects can stretch and challenge our understanding of value and function.

Artists Sacha Delabre and Axelle Mary, who specialise in blown glass, have collaborated with furniture maker Bim Burton and artist-metalworker Izzi Lombardo to create improbable and exquisite objects specifically in response to the unique domestic space of Rodd Court.

The forms and associated functions are instantly recognisable, but these objects are fundamentally unusable. By transforming everyday items into absurd artefacts the artists invite us to reflect on the values we assign to the things we surround ourselves with. Freeing forms from their function transmutes them into objects of contemplation; uselessness becomes a means of reinventing aesthetics.

These works question our relationship with consumption and critique the imperative of utility. Their presentation in the 17th-century interiors of Rodd Court brings into play an era when people had many fewer things yet were on the eve of the trends of fashion, world trade, and increasing quantities of consumer goods that have gathered speed into the present day.

The artists align themselves with the tradition of Dadaism and the absurd – movements that deconstructed norms and disrupted established values. The futility of these pieces is a creative gesture, prompting us to reconsider our priorities and our relationship with the material world.