Move chairs – come together – rethink the world!
All over the world, we sit in beach cafés, community centres, favelas and refugee shelters on white plastic chairs that were designed by French engineer Henry Massonnet in 1972. Since then, shapes and colours have flourished: Sometimes you gotta close your eyes and push through–it’s all about 2 to 3 kilos of plastic, pressed into stackable armchairs with more or less charm, quite comfortable and cheap to buy on the furniture market.
Nevertheless, it is a chair that inevitably turns us into global citizens; we sit on around a billion of these stackable chairs around the world and find ourselves in the middle of heated debates about global distribution struggles, access to resources, capitalism and participation, consumption and recycling. MONOBLOC – a form sets a precedent!
We want to explore this phenomenon together with 50 young people and activists in Berlin + regions of origin, because young people on the run arrive at our cultural centre every day looking for a minimum of a home – moving together on monoblocs!
Nevertheless, it is a chair that inevitably turns us into global citizens; we sit on around a billion of these stackable chairs around the world and find ourselves in the middle of heated debates about global distribution struggles, access to resources, capitalism and participation, consumption and recycling. MONOBLOC – a form sets a precedent!
We want to explore this phenomenon together with 50 young people and activists in Berlin + regions of origin, because young people on the run arrive at our cultural centre every day looking for a minimum of a home – moving together on monoblocs!
ARCHIVIO MONOBLOCO
Sitting conference! Dance happenings, expansive Monobloc installations, and open workshop formats invited neighbors and the urban community to come together and exchange ideas and discuss spaces, resources, local and global issues! Thank you to Michael Wolke, Ahmad Barakat, Sven Seeger, Dance_Lab27, and everyone who participated!
El Warcha is a collective in Tunis that achieves great things with simple means and creative design. El Warcha’s work with local communities was prominently featured at Documenta fifteen, and since then we have been in contact more and more every year. The Monobloc can also be found everywhere in Tunisia, especially at social events such as weddings and funerals, where it is used in public spaces. At ‘MONOBLOC Chairlab’, impressive towers and structures are created, inviting people to join in the building process and have conversations. They also serve as an eye-catching invitation to the evening theater and circus event in El Warcha’s workshop. Afterwards, the Monoblocs are loaded onto a pickup truck and the party guests drive through the streets playing music!
In Amman, too, the Monobloc chair was the focus of artistic reflections on community and participation, serving as a metaphor for flexibility and adaptability in social structures. Are you familiar with “tensegrity”? It refers to structures that are held together by tensile forces! This was complemented by plastic deformations of Monobloc chairs. The sounds of the construction process were recorded and integrated into an interactive sound installation in the exhibition space. Thanks to Ahmad Barakat and Studio 8!
MONOBLOC experiment! Whether in miniature, upside down, with extended armrests, as a rocking chair, a high seat or interwoven with new materials; the Basic Lab of our Bildungsmanufaktur is involved and explores the possibilities of the Allerweltstuhl. Nothing is forever and so the chairs are constantly being dismantled and rethought. Ideas pile up, perspectives shift and the possibilities seem more diverse than expected. Printing + 3D printing by hand with Philip Crawford | Monobloc experiments with Michael Wolke. Photos: Nele Düll, Micheal Wolke.
Printing and 3D printing by hand with Philip Crawford | Monobloc experiments with Michael Wolke. Photos: Nele Düll, Michael Wolke. | ARRIVO Monoblocs with Gianni Hanneforth and Christoph Dangelmaier
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