Design trio Troika were invited by the Barbican Art Gallery to create an event in celebration of Ron Arad’s retrospective Ron Arad: Restless.
They decided to draw on Arad’s long standing love of and association with table tennis. The result was a ping pong tournament with a twist. Five sets of custom bats were designed, all taking their cue from some of Arad’s most classic designs.
Rover Bats speak to the ping pong potential of the Rover P6 V8 3500 car parts, using opposing ashtrays, a gear lever and seat side panels. The Ping Pong bats have cleverly intergrated LED lights that are direction-sensitive and spell “ping” and “pong” in mid-air. Lolita is named after Arad’s famous chandelier, while Lost States depicts the map of the US with the lost states of Hawaii and Alaska as a set of paddles. The Concrete Bats complete the set, paying homage to Arad’s concrete studio.
The tournament had 32 contestants playing on four tables for three hours. The super final saw Arad compete against Huag Shu, refereed by Olympic table tennis umpire Richard Scruton. Arad, playing the P6 Rover Ashtray bat, was the winner of Troika’s Restless Table Tennis Tournament Trophy!
