Khanage
Working on a self-funded design project to recycle old and broken surfboards, Kristine Khan, otherwise known as Khanage, is turning these recreational objects into iconic one-off pieces of art.
Khanage is on a journey around the coastline of the UK in a campervan, collecting the boards from the municipal dumps, the back rooms of hire/shaping workshops and from the darkest corners of people’s attics and garden sheds. “It is my aim to stop people throwing these non-biodegradable objects onto dumps and make them into something they would rather hang with pride on their living room walls. It gives me great satisfaction to make these well used bits of plastic into desirable and incredibly beautiful objects.”
Inspiration for the illustrations came from collecting local folk tales, snippets of history and conservation issues from the different places encountered in her travels. She researched each tale, took photographs, sketched and wrote notes after listening to local people’s stories. In this way she immersed herself into the narrative. “I am encouraging people to stop watching television, to keep reading and telling tales. I was brought up in an environment where during the school holidays we had no television. Our favourite nights were when we used to sit by a roaring fire and listen to my Great Uncle talking about ghost stories whilst we ate pancakes and tea.”
This project has been in development for about four years, but did not come to life until she was commissioned to design a snowboard and a surfboard for two different people. “The clients thought the finished boards looked outstanding. I had such an enthusiastic response that I entered a competition to design artwork for a snowboard for Salomon and I won it. I received a one-off freestyle snowboard with my design on it and have been thinking about doing a limited edition range of boards and snow wear. The experience inspired me to leap into this project – so here I am now six months down the line.” Khanage hopes to collaborate with environmentally based organizations to help raise awareness for ecological issues through exhibitions, workshops and campaigns.
Khanage trained at Glasgow School of Art, Scotland and Central St. Martins School of Art and Design, London and for the last ten years successfully worked as an Event Designer and Fine Artist both in the UK and Australia.
