From the whimsical to the functional, Work-Leisure (2019 – 2021) is a survey of objects made in leisure time by industrial workers in west London’s Park Royal. 

One of the largest industrial estates in Europe, Park Royal is home to more than 2,000 businesses and 40,000employees. Over several months, London-based designer BahbakHashemi-Nezhad visited hundreds of Park Royal businesses and met with workers to catalogue what was being made after-hours and in between tasks on the estate. 

The resulting visual archive contains a diverse range of personal, playful, and practical objects which, although made within an industrial context, fall outside of supply and demand. Each of these projects – from a tyre dealer’s rubber chair to a metal technician’s welded flowers to a glazier’s decorative mirrors to an office manager’s feminist embroidery – demonstrates alternative uses of materials, processes, and techniques within Park Royal’s workspaces.

Begun in 2019 and completed once the estate’s businesses reopened in 2021, Work-Leisureseeks to complicate our understanding of the dynamics between occupation and recreation. 

An exhibition of the photographs will be presented alongside the Work-Leisure publication at Hatton Metalcraft from 24 – 26 September as part of London Design Festival. The work also exists online at www.work-leisure.uk

Exhibition details: 

Friday 24 – Sunday 26 September 2021
Open 11am – 6pm on Friday and Saturday, and 11am – 4pm on Sunday
Book launch: Friday 24 September 2021, 5-7pm
Hatton Metalcraft, 
Unit 3, 12 Trading EstateRoad, 
Park Royal, NW10 7LU

Work-Leisure is a major art commission as part of Old Oak and Park Royal Development Corporation’s (OPDC) Great Place Scheme Programme and is produced by Create London. The Great Place Scheme has been supported by the Arts Council England and the National Lottery Heritage Fund.