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!
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.
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