After seeing Chen Man's solo exhibition Mr Monkey trotted to the staircase of the Chinese Arts Centre to see the current First Step display, Err by Jeremy Hutchinson.
Jeremy Hutchinson developed the Err project in 2011 as part of his MA Degree show at Slade London. He started by emailing companies all over the world attempting to commission a single malfunctioning product, stipulating that the nature of the error be chosen, and applied, by one of the workers who made the product.
Jeremy acquired seventeen items in this manner, of which eight came from factories in China. These eight Chinese items, along with a small mountain of email printouts, invoices, shipping manifests and other documentation, form Jeremy's First Step exhibition.
Mr Monkey found reading the emails fascinating, especially the sections in which the factory owners are expressing surprise that anyone would want to have damaged goods shipped across the world - "Are you joking, sir?" and "You are really a strange man" were his favourite quotes. The photographs of workers damaging their products were interesting too.
Of course, for Mr Monkey the best part of the exhibition was spotting the flaws in the manufactured items. Some had very visible faults, such as the plastic chair reduced to a heap of small bits, while others, such as the sunglasses or the trumpet, had more subtle problems.
With the combination of the bemused emails and the spot-the-flaw objects, Err is one of the most entertaining exhibitions Mr Monkey has seen for some time.
After seeing Chen Man's solo exhibition Mr Monkey trotted to the staircase of the Chinese Arts Centre to see the current First Step display, Err by Jeremy Hutchinson.
