Brittny Badger’s photos reveal the inner beauty of household appliances. By Laura Cochrane Inside Out
Photography by Brittny Badger
There’s a lot of beauty in a well-designed object and the parts that make it up. And the most solid designs are often found in items
that you don’t spend time thinking about, because
you don’t have to. They just work, effortlessly.
For her senior thesis at the Hartford Art School,
25-year-old Brittny Badger explored some of these
devices of convenience that are often taken for
granted. Inspired by a photo she saw of toy car parts
laid on a white background, she disassembled and
rearranged the components of small electric kitchen
appliances, taking photos to document her final
arrangements.
For her first piece, the West Hartford, Conn., artist
gutted an electric handheld beater. Falling in love
with the colorful, bendable wires and other shapes,
colors, and textures of the innards, she went on a
thrift store crawl, looking for more objects to take
apart. The fact that the appliances were used only
added visual interest. “They had much more character due to the nasty residue and stained plastic,”
Badger muses.
In total, she opened, rearranged, and photographed a blender, electric knife, handheld
vacuum, sandwich maker, can opener, beater,
coffee maker, clothes iron, juicer, popcorn maker,
toaster, and waffle iron.
Freed from their plastic shells, the hardworking,
blue-collar appliance parts are given room to play
together aesthetically, instead of working together
mechanically. Components that are normally
motionless seem to gain movement and personality, to interact with each other.
Tendrils of rainbow-colored wires ripple outward, while screws, bolts, wires, and small plastic
doohickeys outline and punctuate the larger, more
task-specific parts. The variety of textures, finishes,
and forms concealed inside these simple devices
is breathtaking. It’s visual, utilitarian poetry.
Badger is currently working on At the Top, a photo
series of building tops and the surrounding sky. To
see more of her work, visit
flickr.com/photos/brittny
badger and her blog,
brittnybadger.blogspot.com.
EXPOSED: Badger’s series of disassembled appliance
images includes (top to bottom) an iron, a juicer, a
coffee maker, and a blender.
Laura Cochrane takes pleasure in simple things. She is the
editorial assistant at MAKE.
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