As a furniture designer, I am interested in material exploration and using forms within the structure to convey tension and abjection within sculpture and installations. I am currently investigating the cultural and functional significance of furniture and how the context changes through the manipulation of the form. I am inspired by the idea of the public’s interaction dictating the content of the piece, and having the success of an artwork rely on the performativity of each individual and/or community it is presented for.
In my own exploration through applying materials to forms I’ve grown to love handmade paper as a versatile medium that comes with its own narrative of fragility and vulnerability. I’ve come to pair this material with the rigidity of a steel armature or as a cast. In my piece Desk Chairs, I manipulated the forms of pre-existing pieces of furniture to address the cultural significance of a school desk and chair and what it means to disrupt their harmony with their unification. I have begun to investigate this idea of performative intimacy in Lets Knit Together Sometime as a way for two people to sit down and realize that they are “connected” in hopes that they will interact with each other as well. In the future I am looking to engage the public directly because the personal experience of becoming more intimate with a piece is something that allured me to furniture in the first place.