Turning old bottles into lighting elements isn’t exactly a novel undertaking. We’ve seen it done in products like the Satechi LED Lamp, the Tejas Home Barlite, and Mandles. Despite that, these Dunk Animal Lamps still feel fresh and fun, with its playful, lighthearted take on functional lighting for the home.
Created by Nishi Chauhan, it’s the latest entry in her Animal Farm series, which consists of different types of lighting units that combine recycled objects and revived traditional craft. For this installment, she uses discarded bottles that are matched up with wood produced using the lac-turnery craft, Channapatna, a pursuit traditionally practiced in Karnataka, India.
For each Dunk Animal Lamp, the bottles are set atop a three-legged wooden base before being fitted with a wooden animal head on top. It looks like a horse standing on three legs in a seeming upright stance, kind of like what would happen if you Frankensteined a legless horse’s head and torso with the body of a spider who lost five legs. Or something equally as strange.
Lighting elements are placed inside the bottle, creating a strange-looking fantasy animal with a body that appears to be glowing from the inside. The general design for all heads and legs are the same for each example of the lamp, although they vary in the natural color of the bottles used, as well as the color accents for the wooden parts. All wooden pieces are turned and lacquered using the Channapatna process.
No pricing is listed, but the Dunk Animal Lamps will be available for preorder soon.