FUTURE PAST

It's unlikely that any product presented in this collection was designed by a "designer" as we know it today.

Instead, each product presented is honed by a history of unforgiving negotiations between producers maximising cost-effectiveness of manufacture, business profitability, and user's expectations of value and utility. With optimisation taken to extreme without the intervention of professional design, outcomes could go awry. Nonetheless, there are occasions where these products "designed" by mitigating factors produce enlightening artefacts.

Sourced from the very limited inventories of archaic household goods stores in Singapore, the National Vending Gallery vends these household products that are exceedingly sensible and surprisingly beautiful. Although they have clearly been around for a long time, many of which have been antiquated through time, yet they provide an uncanny perspective to the future of democratic design.

Items are available as-is at the gallery, some with very limited availability.