Modified Social Benches 11-40

Out of investigating architecture, communication, and social behaviour in the urban space, a series of bench designs was born under the common title Modified Social Benches. The bench designs borrow their basic form from the ubiquitous park or garden bench, but are altered to various degrees to make the act of sitting a conscious physical endeavour. With their modifications, the benches transform their surroundings into places of activity rather than rest and solitude; they foster exchange between the users and the passers-by, thus lending the work a social quality. Due to their alterations, the benches end up somewhere between a dysfunctional object and a functional piece of furniture, and therefore demonstrate the contradiction between artwork and functional object.


Year: 2012
Materials: Powder-coated aluminium
Dimensions variable

Exhibitions:
Fiac, Hors les murs, Jardins des Tuileries, Paris, FR, 2012
A Smile For You, Wanås Konst, Knislinge, SE, 2013
Art Altstetten Albisrieden, Stadt Zürich Kunst im öffentlichen Raum, CH, 2015
The Playground Project - Outdoor, Bundeskunsthalle, Bonn, DE, 2018
BIG ART Large-scale contemporary art in architecture created by Bjarke Ingels Group, Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Copenhagen, DK, 2018