Jonathan Ben-Tovim

Hardwares - Melbourne Design Week

16 May 2026 – 05 Jun 2026

I come from a background in industrial design, having spent a number of years working in design consultancy, designing everyday products and consumer objects. I have worked on everything from medical devices to toilet brushes. A large part of my design practice has involved thinking about how ordinary things are constructed, used and understood. I’ve always had a genuine admiration for industrial design as both a profession and a discipline, particularly the challenge of creating objects that are functional, economical and quietly resolved. Many of the objects referenced throughout this exhibition come from that world of everyday utilitarian design.

The works in Hardwares are often based on objects that carry a kind of familiarity or nostalgia for me. Torches, ladders, spirit levels and improvised furniture are all things I’ve spent time around through workshops, share houses, installations and daily life. They are not usually considered remarkable objects, but over time, I’ve become interested in the strange emotional or visual weight they can accumulate through repeated use and memory. In some cases, like the Dolphin Torch or Maglite, they also belong to a particular moment in material culture that now feels slightly obsolete or displaced.

A large part of this exhibition also comes from wanting to remove myself slightly from the creative process. Rather than designing entirely new forms from scratch, many of the works begin with existing industrial objects or references to twentieth-century art and design. There are subtle and not-so-subtle nods throughout the exhibition to figures such as Donald Judd and Ettore Sottsass, alongside anonymous utilitarian hardware objects that were never intended to be viewed through a sculptural or design lens. I’m interested in what happens when these references overlap and begin to influence one another.
Ultimately, the exhibition is about paying closer attention to objects that are normally overlooked or taken for granted. The works attempt to slightly shift the context of familiar things and encourage people to look at them differently. A spirit level, a ladder or a household torch are all very ordinary functional objects, but they also contain interesting decisions around form, material, proportion and construction. These are objects I’ve spent a lot of time around through work and daily life, and this exhibition was partly an excuse to isolate them, rework them and spend more time examining what makes them interesting to me.

Jonathan Ben-Tovim