New York gallery Friedman Benda's latest exhibition, Accidents Will Happen: Creative Salvage 1981-1991, showcases early furniture pieces from designers including Tom Dixon and Ron Arad. Curator Gareth Williams selects his favourites.
On show until 12 February, Accidents Will Happen exhibits works from the Creative Salvage movement ? an informal design movement that originated in London in the 1980s.
Accidents Will Happen exhibits early work by Tom Dixon and Ron Arad
Creative Salvage took off as an anti-establishment design practice against a backdrop of social upheaval and political dissent ? exemplified by the 1981 Brixton riots and the miners' strikes that took place across the UK in 1984 to 1985.
Designers Dixon, Arad and Mark Brazier-Jones spearheaded the movement and made pieces from scrap metals, recycled building materials and industrial debris.
Read: "As long as you have attitude, you don't have to be talented" says Tom Dixon in Dezeen's latest podcast

"There was a certain punk rock atmosphere, in the sense that they almost unwittingly made you realise that anybody can be a good designer," Friedman Benda guest curator Williams told Dezeen.
"All you need is the imagination and the most rudimentary materials and you can make design," he said. "Anyone could be a designer and anything could be designed."
Furniture made from salvaged and scrap materials feature in the exhibition
W...