7. Interior Reuse

This platform is concerned with the exploration and adaptation of matter that can be considered redundant or obsolete: material that has lost its value, resources that are considered waste, stuff that is considered expendable has been discarded and is considered surplus. These processes of depredation may have been enacted through economic, value-based processes, or by extraordinary one-off means. All situations have in common the proposition that an obsolete environment or element, is not only a site of depredation, it is a condition for mediation, and the site of the enactment of research and design processes that will ensure that meaningful change through reuse will take place. Re:Use participants are obsessed with the unwanted and disused, they are fascinated with determining new life in objects and spaces that are often considered to be spoil.

This year, the platform was based in Sheerness, on the Isle of Sheppey, North Kent. The group were focussed on the reuse of a derelict dockyard church. The eighteenth-century building symbolises the shifting values and fortunes of the island and its population. Reuse participants were tasked with the exploration and reworking of its meaning in the 21st century.

Professor Graeme Brooker