Silver Toilet Brush

I designed this silver toilet brush during my last semester enrolled in the IM Masters course at the Design Academy Eindhoven….. somewhat of an ironic reaction to that program. Its a bit jokey, like my gold and rhodium cocktail straws, but like the straws, I hope, also beautiful and complex in meaning.

It was interesting to arrive at something so obviously meant for a luxury market after studying highly disposable plastic brushes and changing their form based on mainly a hygienic criteria. So this silver brush was designed to to create better hygiene conditions by expediting the processes of evaporation by exposing the brush head. It can also be disassembled for sterilisation and transport, and, importantly when considering the resulting visual effect, uses the properties of silver for the oligodynamic effect. This use of silver is therefore directed by a concern for hygiene not luxury or aesthetic design. But of course, it does then introduce new aesthetic considerations, and conceptually raises a conflict between disposability and luxury within the work.