Broken: Mending and repair in a throwaway world

We live in a single-use society, where fashion is fast, disposability is the norm and it is easier to replace than to repair. We don’t need to mend things anymore – and yet we do. What is it about Homo faber – man the maker – that cannot resist fixing what is broken?

As we start to decouple from the linear take-make-waste model that has dominated Western economies since the Industrial Revolution and seek something more circular, an enquiry into what mending means has never been more urgent.

With a foreword by The Repair Shop’s Jay Blades, this new book by craft and circularity advocate Katie Treggiden celebrates 25 artists, curators, menders and re-makers who have rejected the allure of the fast, disposable and easy in favour of the patina of use, the stories of age and the longevity of care and repair. Accompanying these profiles, six in-depth essays explore the societal, cultural and environmental roles of mending in a throwaway world.