rebecca szeto

Drawing Chair

The Drawing Chair: A Performance Piece for the Fidgety Child began as a chair which was broken by my daughter while she was experimenting with its possible uses. From there, it evolved into an open-ended interactive installation.

Inspired by Duchamp’s With Hidden Noise (1916) and Fluxist, George Brecht’s A Chair with History (1966), the chair is designed for questioning what we think we know. The aim of the piece is to compel playful new ways of seeing and experiencing both form and function. It transforms an object into a meaningful gesture/action, as per the “pure gesture” of philosopher Giorgio Agamben.

The broken chair is a metaphor for breaking down blind "domesticated" thought and suspending judgment so that familiar things can be seen with fresh eyes. This piece considers acts of unselfconscious learning and creativity. It speaks to a child-like sense of exploration and to an active (fidgety) creative mind, though the audience is not limited to children.