Take a Seat Project - Material Matters

The aim for this project was to reimagine the notion of a stool. In teams, we were given the task to research and create a 1:1 prototype of a stool that represented contemporary culture. After lots of in depth research my team and I decided that a good topic to focus on would be the effects loneliness has on people because there is a strong link between the effects loneliness has on the body and the effects sitting down for long periods can have on your body. Working through the development process we decided that it would be good to find lonely objects and give them a new purpose in our stool.

The name of our project is 'The Power of three' this is because three is known to be a strong number and as we were focusing on loneliness and adaptive reuse of lonely objects, we thought by having three stools it would add to the impact the project can have on people.

Each of our stools had a dedicated type of loneliness. The first focused on Cultural loneliness, this type of loneliness is where a person belongs to a different culture and feels that they don’t fit, or belong, in the new culture. The second stool focused on Social loneliness, this type of loneliness is where a person is on the fringes of a group, excluded from a group, or is actively rejected. And the final stool focused on interpersonal loneliness, this type of loneliness is the result of losing a significant, or intimate, relationship. The aim of the stools is to raise awareness for these types of loneliness because this was such a taboo subject when it is such a common thing to go through. 

 The outcome was an effective installation that included all three of our stools and frames woven with thread to create a secluded atmosphere, the frames also included little windows so that when seated on any of the stools you can see the person sitting on the stool next to you and you will see that you are not the only one feeling lonely.