Beyond the Usual Sunday Lunch Table Setting: Social Reflections on an Upcycled Bell

Before moving to the Netherlands, Sunday lunches at my grandma’s house were routine. The whole family would arrive at around 11:30; we would sit around the table dressed with a white tablecloth, a gold table runner, silver utensils, shiny white ceramic plates, multi-colored water goblets and 2 brass bells on both ends.

To be honest, I never paid much attention to the table setting until I visited my grandma again recently and she asked me if I liked her new bell. It was an upcycled bell she made herself out of a used spray can cut in half with a string and bead inserted down the hole in the center to make the sound.

Photo: An upcycled spray can my grandma turned into a bell.

“Is this social design?”, she asked me, trying to understand the field of design that I practice. “Is it environmental?”

One thing I’ve noticed is that when people try to think of the implications of their actions, they mostly end up thinking about the environmental aspect. I suppose it’s the easiest and the most straightforward. Indeed, my grandma’s upcycled bell was “eco-friendly”, but from a societal perspective, the bell reinforced social hierarchy because she made it to use to call her maid.

It’s always been so common for households in Manila to have help that some have trouble surviving without them, but it was only recently that I really realized how decorated Filipino households are with artifacts of this reality. I wondered, what trajectories can we take in the designs of our homes so we don’t just continue to buttress the status quo?