Aalto University - Cargo Cult

“--The task of designing and making a container for valuable personal belongings reminds us of the melanesian "cargo cult". According to received scholarship the post-colonial islanders believed that western manufactured goods could be received if the conditions of reception - such as airfields, harbours, radio-receivers, etc. - were right.

In the same spirit you might believe that by constructing containers for storing valuable goods the "cargo" might arrive somehow from somewhere. How and where, we do not know. this is because the origin and the method of production of the western goods is obscure and difficult to retrace.

Ultimately, furniture design as material culture is based on a belief that by improving the quality of our material goods we can affect our situation and attain a good life and happiness.”

- Martin Relander, Lecturer.