Contemporary British design combines a fascination with materials and manufacture with an awareness of the power of the object to express and evoke memory.

In some cases, this impression of material memory centres on the expression of the personal; in others, it articulates an awareness of national identity that manifests itself through humour and a wry sense of irony.

Re:Living Britain was organised around an axis of seven themes that have persisted since Victorian times as sources of creative inspiration and national obsession: Travel, Childhood & Play, Memory & Emotion, Industrial Process, Nature, Suppressed Eroticism & Pets. Debates around the values that constitute the British approach to each of these concepts continue to be pertinent and constantly emerge as sites of conflict. It is from this conflict, and the struggle between New and Old, an uneasy history and uncertain future, that this work developed. Haunting, comic, sensual, functional, gently mocking and often breathtakingly beautiful, the work selected for Re:Living Britain offered a playful picture of contemporary Britain where everything changes and much remains the same.

Re:Living Britain was produced by The British Council for UK Trade & Investment. Exhibition

Design by Tatsuya Kanemura, with graphic design by Alexis Burgess.

Project Manager: Alice Cicolini.