Both furniture and clothing mediate the body in its environment, albeit through different levels of intimacy and mobility. In Hansol Kim’s project Wearing Chairs While Sitting On Pants, the author questions the constraints of these assumptions by exploring the seam between the categories of furniture and clothing, with the intention of more deliberately activating a new object category in that between-space. Through synthesising and juxtaposing existing forms, functions and materials of the furniture/clothing divide, these objects are questions rather than declarative statements.

How does engaging with an object that is propositional, rather than conforming, activate the participant’s imagination? Kim likes these liminal pieces to provoke the audience to (re)consider their current views on how clothing and furniture function in relationship to their own bodies, spaces, and lives. Are new words, functions or aesthetic values generated? And more expansively, how might the blurring or recasting of this boundary suggest the productive rethinking of other object categories?

Hansol Kim, (b. 1988, Korea), lives and works in Eindhoven. He finished his BA in 3D design and craft at the University of Brighton in 2017, and acquired his MA in Contextual Design at the Design Academy Eindhoven.