LONDON.- ROKBOX is launching the first reusable art crate made from recycled and recyclable materials. Four years in the making, ROKBOX provides a secure, versatile, robust and weatherproof solution for safely transporting priceless artworks, without adding to landfill.

With ambitions to become the industry’s go-to-solution for packaging and transporting art, this experienced team of artworld insiders and specialists has produced a clever engineering solution that is not only more environmentally conscious, but more secure and waterproof than the traditionally wasteful wooden crate.

This October, ROKBOX officially launches after beta testing by many of the world’s leading galleries, museums and fine art shippers. Its founders are on a path to bring about a major cultural shift in how the art world takes responsibility for protecting both our fragile environment and precious artworks in equal measure. The innovative new solution for fine art packaging is available to international markets from London to New York, Hong Kong and beyond.

Visual art has changed dramatically over the centuries yet artworks today are still moved and stored mostly in wooden crates, as they were during the Renaissance. The way we transport these unique and irreplaceable works of art seems to bely the forward-thinking, high-end nature of this fast paced global industry. Until now. Made from recycled and recyclable materials and stress-tested for shock, water damage, humidity and puncture damage, ROKBOX is a revolutionary upgrade from the humble wooden crate, tailored to the sophisticated needs of the 21st Century art world by three young British entrepreneurs.

Even the highest quality wooden crates are vulnerable to water absorption and temperature change, twisting and expanding in different conditions or – an art collector’s worst fear – puncture damage. What’s more, because of the expense and infeasibility of storing purpose-built crates, they are often thrown away, which increases the environmental impact of each exhibition or acquisition.

A ROKBOX retails for a similar price to museum-standard, high-specification wooden crates and provides an additional rapid payback when reused. The carbon cost of producing one ROKBOX over a wooden crate is offset after ten uses. It’s a reusable solution that can last decades.

A staggering 85% of the CO2 burden in transporting an artwork is from the journey itself.

Lighter than a traditional wooden crate, ROKBOX requires less fuel to move, particularly if shipping is by air. ROKBOX’s research has shown that airfreight represents up to 85% of the carbon emissions for artworld transportation. In contrast to the inefficiency of traditional packaging and the weight of wood, a ROKBOX can reduce the weight of goods by 30%, offering a substantially more environmentally friendly option.

ROKBOX also offers better protection meaning collectors can choose to transport works by sea or rail, which has a significantly lower carbon footprint than shipping by air. Additionally, ROKBOX’s patented ‘floating’ panel design removes the need for single-use plastic packaging.

While an increasing number of artists and curators raise the issue of climate change in their work, the behind-the-scenes machinations of the global art market and touring museum shows are in many ways at odds with these good intentions, and often not up to date with developments in other areas of sales, events, and logistics. ROKBOX allows fine art shippers, commercial galleries, auction houses, museums and institutions to offer a far safer and more-refined service that is environmentally conscious.

The team thinking outside the box
ROKBOX was founded in 2014 by Andrew Stramentov, who has worked with Gagosian, Ben Brown, Sotheby's, and many international art foundations. While independently producing a number of major exhibitions, including Jeff Koons at The Serpentine Gallery in London and a number of Venice Biennale presentations, Andrew was struck by the enormous amounts of waste produced by the numerous exhibitions and fairs he was attending. He also knew that there had to be a more secure and more sustainable way to transport art.

Andrew enlisted packaging development expert Anthony Fraser, who has filed more than 50 patents across a range of industries, and Verity Brown, who has worked for one of the most prestigious fine art shipping companies in London, Momart, as well as major international galleries Gagosian and Pace. With 35 years of art world experience between them and a network to match, the trio began a huge consultation process, talking to conservators, art technicians, fine art transport companies, environmental and material scientists, industrial designers and insurers to find out about some of the key problems of the current system of wooden crates. Some of the findings were obvious but others – the amount of damage that occurs due to tiredness, for example – were less expected. Using this four-year development process, the ROKBOX team has honed its design to create a sophisticated reusable shipping crate, prepared for anything that international travel can throw at it.

Packed with clever features
Formed from polyethylene, aluminium, silicone and recycled stainless steel, ROKBOX’s sophisticated design allows the user to easily secure any two dimensional artwork into the reusable crate and transport it safely and securely, without the need for internal packing materials. You can reconfigure ROKBOX’s patented floating panel and locking mechanism each time to accommodate different dimensions, avoiding the huge amount of wasteful packing materials and single-use wooden crates that end in landfill every year.

ROKBOX’s unique design is based upon the principle of securing an artwork to a rigid floating panel, which has been cushioned and expertly tuned to protect from shock, impact and vibration. It has been fine-tuned for a range of weight and size variations, meaning it’s just as safe to ship an invaluable print as a bulky canvas. It weighs 40% less than traditional crates, making it easier to handle and thus reducing drops and injury to art handlers.

Art transportation is a long-established business, and with this in mind users can use ROKBOX’s fixings or their own – the system works with the majority of global choices. Technicians can affix artworks to the panel without tools, reducing scope for human error and saving time. The design is so simple and ergonomic – when the artwork is locked in, it clicks like a seatbelt. You can feel it’s secure.

Currently available in two sizes, small (H109xW109xD28cm) and large (H159xW159xD34cm), ROKBOX launches this October.

Tried, tested and award winning
ROXBOX has been pitted against the best quality, ‘museum standard’, wooden cases used by most leading organisations by testing specialist TÜV SÜD, and verified by Leicester University Engineering department. Their experts found it to be 50% better protected against damaging vibrations than a museum case, better protected against straight drops (by 19%), corner drops (68%) and toppling (28%). It was better for punctures, water resistance (both immersion and exposure) and matched or improved on humidity and temperature variations.

These results and ROKBOX’s clever design impressed the judges of the Red Dot Award, scooping up the top prize “best of the best” in 2019’s Product Design category.