Object
Cross Cultural Chairs: Indonesia
Cross Cultural Chairs: Indonesia
‘We wear the same shoes, listen to the same playlists, and watch the same films,’ says designer Matteo Guarnaccia. ‘But do we also use the same chairs? Do we sit in the same way?’ Driven by these questions and by his curiosity regarding production methods and how globalisation is affecting design, Guarnaccia travelled around the world to visit the eight most densely populated countries. In each country he stayed for one month. Once arrived, Guarnaccia crisscrossed metropoles and villages, visited markets and museums, and talked to the local inhabitants about their customs and habits, local politics and history – sometimes using hand and feet. This way he was able to form a picture of a country’s culture in a short space of time, with a keen awareness of his limited perspective as a (western) outsider. Working with local designers, he then translated that image into a design that had to result in a real chair within that same month, including a photo shoot and presentation. After all, on the first day of the next month Guarnaccia would fly off to his next destination. Guarnaccia started in Brazil and went on to visit Mexico, Japan, Indonesia, China, India, Russia and Nigeria. After eight intensive months, he returned home with eight different chairs as eight portraits of a country.
The chair was introduced to Indonesia in the wake of Dutch colonialism.
There it was manufactured using rattan palm wood: light, pliable, and strong. Indonesia is the world’s largest producer of rattan, although the material is mainly used for export. Today, rattan is especially popular in Scandinavian design. This CCC chair features three varieties of rattan and is expressly designed after a typical local model.[text 2023]- Title
- Cross Cultural Chairs: Indonesia
- Dating
- 2018-01-01 - 2018-12-31
- Object number
- 35658/004
- Collection
- toegepaste kunst
Studio Hiji
- Materials
- rotan
- Technique
- rotan
- Dimensions
- hoogte 73.8 cm
- breedte 56.5 cm
- diepte 53 cm
- Acquisition
- aankoop met steun van de VriendenLoterij (2022)
- Inscriptions and marks
- :
- Rights
- Collectie Centraal Museum Utrecht / foto Adriaan van Dam
- Documentation
- Stoel neemt stelling, Inl. Bart Rutten, redactie Esther Darley, Natalie Dubois, Hans Schopping, auteurs Laurie Cluitmans, Catharina van Daalen, Esther Darley, Natalie Dubois, Bart Rutten, Anne van der Zwaag, Centraal Museum (Utrecht, 2023), 24 p.
- Cross Cultural Chairs: Diversifying Modern Seating, Ed. Guarnaccia, Matteo, text: FormaFantasma, Aldo Cibic, Tulio Amarante, ... [et al], Onomatopee (Eindhoven, 2020), 384 p.
