SELF SECLUSION CHAIRS
A research-by-design project exploring anonymous acts of repair and placement of solitary chairs found in Israel’s forests.
Between design, ritual, and human presence, the project traces the poetic intersection of function, need, and contemplation.
While wandering through the woods in Israel, one may encounter a chair: a broken chair that
has been repaired and positioned facing the view; perhaps a branch serves as a backrest
or one leg has been improvised from a tree stump or rock. What is this solitary chair – an
industrial household product– doing in the heart of the forest? Who does it belong to and
how did it get there? Who repaired it, and why? What purpose these chairs served?
These questions and many more sparked my curiosity and accompanied me over my years
walking in through woods of Israel, from Mount Meiron in the north to the Judean plains of
the south, documenting these chairs.
As an industrial designer concerned with the production of objects and aware that chairs
are widely considered the peak of design, I embarked on a journey in the footsteps of these
unique chairs, asking myself: what are the basic requirements a chair has to meet to be
considered a chair?
What began as an intuitive observation, turned, after a long time and long walks, to an
interesting inquiry and research. I finally realized that these chairs form a unique phenomenon
embedded within both social and spiritual needs of those who left the chairs behind. I guess,
what attracted my mind most was the mix of an uncommon behavior and the world of design
employed intuitively by people who are far from any current trend or stream.
