EXHIBITION - A DEMOCRATIC SEAT ,2019 KARTIRJK DESIGN WEEK 2019/10
TEAMWORK: Chen Cheng, Prakruthi Rao,Haoran Qin
Brief
seat; noun a thing made for sitting on, such as a chair or a stool.
democracy; noun a system of government by the whole population or all the eligible members of a state, typically through elected representatives.
For this work, we appropriate an existing ‘seat’ (or ‘seats’) that will be adapted/reused/modified/changed/developed/adjusted/enhanced
to become the eventual outcome.
This project's outcome is a fully functioning ‘seat’ that responds to our understanding of ‘democracy’. The seat exhibited at the Kortrijk Design Week ( Oct 2019, Kortrijk, Belgium)
Democracy to us is a feeling of limited liberty. A compromise between two major aspects of democracy which are liberty and equality. Hence, it is a fragile state of being, yet strong in its principles. This feeling is what we want to evoke through our seat. A feeling of fragility and strength at the same time.
The feeling of democracy was emphasised in this project. Democracy is not only a point in time for stopping but it is also a continuous power, so the relationship we establish is not only at the moment of sitting also an accompanying state.
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Notting Hill Farmers Market, London
As a basic power, democracy is reminiscent of a universal and equal place like the market. When class labels and capital derivatives are stripped，the essential materials of daily can better reflect the most basic demands.
Material Research
The worn-out old suitcase opened up is to create a fragile backrest giving a feeling of
delicate instability visually. Thesuitcase also symbolises permanancy-an abject that lasts through
time but the contents of which are temporary basedon choice, much like democracy.
We used the legs of an old chair to raise the height of the seat to a functionallycomfortable one to ensure stability. Overall we have tried to create a feeling of democracy through our chair.To ensure it can be compactly transported we have designed the chair such that the entire chair can be packed up
intothe suitcase and re-assembled by anyone based on the instruction manual which we have
provided with the chair.
