- Overview
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Modern society suffers from environmental problems caused by easy consumption and rapid disposal. The author discovers the meaning of consumption and the environment by witnessing secondhand culture in Finland, which is manifested in the numerous second-hand shops, vintage shops and flea markets that have become part of the daily lives of Finns.
- Book Intro
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Modern society suffers from environmental problems caused by easy consumption and rapid disposal. The development of capital and technology made possible mass production and mass consumption, but we are now faced with the problems of resource depletion and environmental pollution. We are at a point where we must think about consumption and production methods for a better future.
“Consumer and environment” was a topic of dilemma for the author of this book, who studied design. Her concerns continued while she was staying abroad in Finland, a country with such glamorous descriptions as “Design powerhouse," "Welfare state," and "Highest ranking country on the happiness index.” Yet she found the answer in an unexpected place. What she witnessed was “secondhand culture becoming a part of everyday life.” ‘The city of secondhand shops, Helsinki was the site of the circulation economy. Resources are not typically circulated in the linear economy model that was born with the industrial revolution, yet products that were previously disposed of were being repaired, recycled and reused. Most of all, individual consumers participated in secondhand culture by becoming the subjects that extended the life of products.
In this book, the author introduces in detail the secondhand shops run by donations, sales agency secondhand shops, vintage shops, flea markets and second-hand trading events along with the nature of Finnish secondhand culture through her experiences and interviews with local people.
If easy consumption and quick disposal are problems of modern society and an individual cannot fully consume the value of an object, which leads to the wasting of valuable resources, and if you do not need to own every single product, shouldn’t there be a way to share them?
The messages about the consumption and the environment that Finland's secondhand culture sends to us does not only provide an opportunity to consider and rediscover the value of products, but also to informs both consumers and producers that they should consider healthier choices for a better future."
- About the Author
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Park Hyunsun
After studying Wooden Furniture at Hongik University, Park Hyunsun (F) received her master's degree in furniture design from Helsinki University of Art (now Alto University) in Finland. After that, she operated a product design company called About:Blank. Together with local producers, and with the goal of producing high-quality products that can be used for a long time, she made and supplied notebooks, furniture and more to many countries, including Finland, Germany, Belgium, and Singapore. In addition, through a series of articles she wrote for the Korea Institute of Design Promotion's Design Issue Report and Designpress's Naver Design, she introduced a concise and functional Finnish design. Since her undergraduate at an art university, she continued to pose questions about the environment where we continuously produce, consume, and dispose of things. Are we okay like this? While she was thinking about what she wanted to do and how to live for a healthy and sustainable future, she came across Finnish people who received secondhand culture as part of their daily lives. She found a hint to the question she had found unsolvable up until then while listening to the stories of active secondhand culture, consumption and the environment in Finland. This book is a record of that empathy.
