Introducing Beat

24 Hours in Shanghai 

We celebrate Tom Dixon’s extraordinary objects and best-selling families.⁠
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Bearing the mark of its maker, BEAT is a celebration of the beauty of things created by hand. Each BEAT light is made from hand-spun brass, sculpted by artisan craftsmen in Northern India. ⁠
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They retain hammer marks from their forming and as part of an ancient process, each light takes four days to complete.⁠
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story.tomdixon.net/24shanghai⁠

“Beat is a series of lamps with a very strong silhouette that are made in India by hand. Spun and then beaten and then patinated to make this very recognisable series. I started the Beat project by accident. The original objective was a not-for-profit trip to India where I took half a dozen students from The Royal College of Art, sponsored by The British Council, to work with street metal workers in Jaipur in Northern India. These people who make these lamps traditionally have made water pots which you see a lot in villages in India to carry water from the well and to hold water in houses. Copper and Brass have been used for years because they’re hypoallergenic, but gradually these pots are being replaced by plastic water vessels and metal workers are finding themselves without a job, so we sat around trying to find alternative functions for their skills and you can see the heritage of the water pots very clearly in the shapes that we’ve got here.”– Tom Dixon