Design and production fill the world with commodities made for a specific purpose. When the properties for which they are valued diminish, these objects become waste. We approach waste as:

-a misplaced resource,
-a categorical error,
-evidence of socioeconomic pathology,
-a gesture of dominance,
-a remainder/byproduct of some other process

We work at the back end of production to re-imagine designed objects and materials that have been stripped of their utility, fulfilled their given purpose, have been replaced... We work to identify, extract, exploit, undermine, appropriate... the various and diverse types of value embedded in these materials. We approach salvage, reuse, reclamation, foundness as:

-an antidote to expansionist/colonial economics,
-an invigorating if negligible intervention in/diversion of the waste stream,
-a celebration of the human and biological labor embedded in materials,
-a means of investigating values (humans) and their propensity toward things,
-an inquiry into the various forms of being,
-an elaboration of the western interest in found materials, from driftwood figurines to Duchamp's experiments with ready-mades, from Rauschenberg's combines to the phenomenon of the Antiques Road Show, from ethnographic artifacts to religious reliquaries,
-an elaboration of alchemical principals in the wake of the decline of metaphysics...
-alternately apocalyptic and utopian

...to be continued...

Our work can be divided into three general areas of activity:

1. External Design in which we serve as mentors, consultants, guides, teachers to students engaged in reuse projects.

2. Direct Exchange is a project in which we facilitate or broker the exchange of used merchandise, through our affiliation with the Resource Center of Chicago 501(c). This project is designed to be both a re-use initiative and a funding source for Material Exchange.

3. Internal Design describes projects conceived of and created by members of the group. These include:
-designed objects or interventions, either commissioned or speculative, for a resale or art audience
-installations
-and games

Material Exchange is currently working under the collaborative input of artists: Sara Black, Alta Buden, Charles McGhee Hassrick, John Preus, and David Wolf. The projects of Material Exchange have been exhibited at the Smart Museum of Art, The Experimental Station, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, The Betty Rymer Gallery, Gallery 400, and The Hyde Park Art Center, and others. Other projects include collaborative workshops or courses with art and design students at the Illinois Institute of Technology, Harrington College of Design, The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and Street Level Youth Media.