Readymade — Marion x Sarah Nedovic

For Melbourne Design Week 2024, Sarah Nedovic presents Readymade — a sculptural pendant light installation created in collaboration with Marion Wine Bar and local glass artist Ruth Allen.

Marking a new exploration of materials for the studio, the work draws from French-American painter and sculptor Marcel Duchamp’s concept of the “readymade”: everyday, utilitarian objects recontextualised and elevated “to the dignity of a work of art” through the artist’s intent alone.

While Duchamp famously elevated a store-bought bottle rack to the status of art, Nedovic reclaims the bottles themselves — shaping them into something new. 

Recycled glass bottles – once vessels of consumption — are transformed into bespoke pendant lights. Hand-blown into metal moulds by Allen and reimagined by Nedovic, the lights return to their origin: suspended above the very bar from which the bottles were sourced. 

This circular process — from object, to waste, to artistic centrepiece — underscores the studio’s enduring interest in material storytelling, environmental responsibility, and how objects shape space. Readymade is not only an exercise in creating mood and atmosphere, but a quiet proposition to patrons: that the ordinary can be reimagined and elevated — through context, collaboration, and care.