Max Lamb

Exhibited at DESIGN MIAMI. 2023 Most corrugated cardboard boxes are constructed from three or five layers of unbleached pulped recycled paperboard, with every other layer being fluted (corrugated) to give thickness, lightness, structure and impact resistance. They are wholly derived from plants; wood fibres for the layers of brown paper which are glued together using starch from tubers, seeds and roots such as potatoes, wheat, rice and tapioca. Cardboard boxes are usually secondary in importance to their contents, yet beautiful in material and design. My work using cardboard boxes is as much about the raw constituents as the forms and volumes of the boxes themselves, and an exercise in both construction and deconstruction intended to give primary function and value to the material. Some of the cardboard boxes I’ve accumulated over the last few years lent themselves to being reinterpreted as furniture by simply stacking or joining two or more boxes together, even if only for a component like a backrest, seat or a leg. Other boxes required greater manipulation to enhance their structure or to alter their proportions or shape, by cutting, scoring, folding, rolling or cross-laminating, before gluing them back together again, always conscious not to generate further offcuts or waste. Unavoidable scraps went into a bucket of water along with cardboard salvaged from less usable boxes to make the strips of soggy brown paper I used for one of the final processes - paper mache. The porosity of the paper and solubility of the adhesive used in box manufacture meant the cardboard delaminated very quickly when briefly soaked in water, which made the paper pliable enough to form over complex shapes. I built layer upon layer of torn strips laced with wheat paste, which when dry created a structural exoskeleton over the assemblies of boxes and cardboard constructions. The glue is simply plain flour and water heated for a few minutes until dissolved to create a gelatinous paste offering superb compatibility with the porous paper. I chose to use wheat paste as the crop is native to the UK and flour is both readily available and very quick to make into glue. I also romanticised I might be using flour milled from wheat grown by my Grandfather on his Yorkshire farm. On surfaces where it was needed, I coated some of my cardboard furniture using linseed oil paints, or tempera paint made from wheat paste mixed with earth oxides such as tin and iron. But the protagonist is the box; box as raw material, as paper, then back to box, albeit now Box Stool, Box Table or Box Chair. Materials: Cardboard, Wheat Paste, Linseed Paint.