Issue 19: Making Good

As the world gets more disconnected, polluted, and damaged by the day, for this issue of Hole & Corner, we are actively looking for solutions and positive stories. We are increasingly thankful to – and inspired by – the makers, designers, activists and researchers who are dedicating their time to overcoming some of the biggest social and environmental challenges of our times.

Nell Card meets the designer-scavengers making beautiful, useful, furniture, products and materials out of waste. She meets our Craeftiga finalist Charlotte Kidger whose pastel coloured vessels and tables are moulded from industrial dust left behind from a model making factory in Telford. Then there’s Elvis & Kresse and their collection of luxury, made to last handbags and leather goods crafted from broken fire brigade firehoses and ‘rescued’ leather salvaged from Burberry’s production lines in Italy. 

On the quest for renewable materials, we sent the founder of materials research design studio Ma-t-ter, Seetal Solanki, off foraging for stories of seaweed, algae and other slimy tales. We also travel to the flax fields of Belgium to sway in the wind and marvel at this plant’s ability to clothe and nourish us, needing little water to grow and leaving no waste behind, not even a pile of dust.

We also do a spot of bird watching, as 17 year-old activist and environmentalist Mya-Rose Craig, also known simply as Birdgirl, takes the writer Sarah Callard and the photographer Linda Brownlee out bird ringing in Somerset’s Chew Valley. Mya-Rose set up Black2Nature to share her love of birds and the outdoors with other young people from nearby Bristol who don’t have easy or regular access to nature in their daily lives. 

A day out in the country might be just what the doctor ordered, but many of us have no option but to spend our days in decidedly unhealthy offices and institutions. Mark Hooper sets out to explore the world of Well Standard, a certification that is aimed at improving our buildings for the mental and physical health and wellbeing of the people who work in them. 

We have so many other stories to share. Mike Feingold’s generosity and free spirit will make you smile.  And our Assemble section is packed full of surprises, including Eunhye Ko’s wonderful, whimsical hand-crafted plastic-free vacuum cleaner made from ceramic and basketwork.

Finally, we are pleased to welcome back our Notes section, with a whole range of personal and intimate stories, including Jessica Seaton’s discovery of how to make the perfect compost, Claire Wellesley-Smith’s stitch journal, Tom of Holland’s six year darn, and what Sheryl Garratt learnt from her eco-warrior grandmother. 

We hope this issue inspires you and empowers you to work your way through the broken bits of our lives and find new ways of patching things together, fixing things up, rethinking how we make and use things, and ultimately making good.