CHRISTOPHER RÆBURN × CHARLIE WARDE

What began as more than fifteen years of friendship, shared interests and creative exchange is evolving into an ongoing artistic collaboration between Christopher RÆBURN and Charlie Warde.

The partnership was first presented publicly at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition in London, where Christopher and Charlie exhibited two collaborative works, REFUGE POINT and INFLECTION POINT. The Royal Academy marked the beginning of a wider exploration of material reuse, cultural memory and the graphic language of refuge;  with new work and further exhibitions now in development.

Christopher and Charlie first met in 2009, after Liberty London sold out RÆBURN's debut collection of parachute outerwear. Intrigued by the work, Charlie visited Christopher at his Hackney Wick studio, beginning a friendship shaped by a shared fascination with art, fashion, architecture and the histories embedded within objects.

Those interests eventually converged in REFUGE POINT and INFLECTION POINT, two works created from original military silk escape maps dating from the 1950s. Once carried as part of emergency survival equipment, the maps were designed to be lightweight, durable and adaptable;  qualities that have long made them particularly significant within the RÆBURN archive and practice.

Across the works, Christopher and Charlie intervene directly with block-printed ink onto the maps using the graphic language of British Ministry of Defence muster-point signage; a process done by hand in London.  Through repetition, inversion and recontextualisation, symbols originally associated with organisation, protection and emergency are given new meaning; exploring ideas around movement, displacement, solidarity and refuge.

The Royal Academy represented the first chapter between Christopher and Charlie and the pair are continuing  to develop the collaboration, with new work and forthcoming presentations in Marseille and beyond providing an opportunity to explore how the ideas, materials and visual language established through the first pieces might evolve.

At its heart is a shared belief that existing objects can carry both history and future possibility. By bringing together different perspectives from art and design, the collaboration continues to explore how material, memory and meaning can be reconsidered through making.

REFUGE POINT and INFLECTION POINT remain available through the Royal Academy and directly from both RÆBURN and WARDE. 

For further information on the existing works, forthcoming exhibitions or the wider collaboration, please contact the RÆBURN studio.