Design in Dialogue

Design in Dialogue returns for a conversation with Tom Dixon, recorded recently from his London studio. This versatile, even chameleonic innovator has reinvented himself many times over the course of his long career. In our conversation, we return to his early days as an enfant terrible of the British scene. As a leading exponent of the Creative Salvage movement – featured in Friedman Benda’s exhibition Accidents Will Happen – Dixon pioneered a style of improvisatory bricolage, often incorporating industrial castoffs and vintage metal scrap. At once generative and dystopian, opportunistic and avant garde, this DIY methodology gradually expanded into more sophisticated techniques. Yet Dixon’s work has never lost the immediacy with which it began. In our interview, which also features contributions from guest curator Gareth Williams, we explore his transition from music to design, the characters and settings of 1980s London, and the legacy of Creative Salvage today.