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This isn’t the definitive historical past of chair design and making in Aotearoa. As a substitute, it’s a story of advert hoc analysis and discovery that begins and ends with an evocative whalebone chair that resides right this moment in Auckland Museum. Present in Russell in 1944, the chair dates to the 1800s. It was a product of necessity: created from a whale vertebra, with three bones inserted for legs, by a whaler needing one thing to sit down on.
The exhibition charts a jagged course from these corporeal whale bones. One chair results in one other, every chosen as a result of they level us to tales that warrant telling and, in lots of circumstances, risked going untold.
Key moments come and go – the Arts and Crafts interval of the late 1800s; modernism; the native Studio Furnishings motion within the Eighties and 90s – whereas explicit themes persist. Pragmatism could be seen within the design of chairs in Aotearoa at each flip; so can also the affect of entry (or lack of it) to native manufacturing, supplies and world commerce.
Adaptation is an unwavering thread all through The Chair. An object has ancestry, nothing is solely new, nothing is its personal island. By transferring by means of the chairs on this exhibition we discover connections and inspiration between the works; we see the traces they throw to the previous, and to design and craft past our shores. Adaptation can throw up tensions. Whereas it shares territory with copying and appropriation, it additionally presents a path to iterative change and innovation. It’s how a design tradition emerges over time: how we discover a distinctive voice.
The 1800s whalebone chair will not be on this exhibition – it’s too fragile to be loaned. As a substitute, a one-to-one reproduction is as a substitute. Made with the advantage of modern three-dimensional printing applied sciences, the 2023 mannequin is each one of many oldest and latest chairs on show.
The Chair is made potential by the beneficiant assist of greater than 50 personal lenders, and institutional loans from Auckland Museum Tāmaki Paenga Hira, Te Papa Tongarewa Museum of New Zealand and The Dowse Artwork Museum.
The Chair: A narrative of design and making in Aotearoa
- Opening: 6pm, Friday 1 December 2023
- Exhibiting: 2 December 2023–3 March 2024
- Objectspace, 13 Rose Highway, Ponsonby, Auckland
Preorders for the publication could be made right here
Curated by Kim Paton, Exhibition identification and spatial design by Inhouse.
Offered by ECC. Supported by Inhouse and Laminex.
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