Join us on the final day of The Chair: A story of design and making in Aotearoa for an informative floor talk from exhibition curator and Objectspace Director Kim Paton.

Kim writes of the exhibition:

“This is not the definitive history of chair design and making in Aotearoa. Instead, it is a story of ad hoc research and discovery that begins and ends with an evocative whalebone chair that resides today in Auckland Museum. Found in Russell in 1944, the chair dates to the 1800s. It was a product of necessity: made from a whale vertebra, with three bones inserted for legs, by a whaler needing something to sit on.

The exhibition charts a jagged course from those corporeal whale bones. One chair leads to another, each chosen because they point us to stories that warrant telling and, in many cases, risked going untold.”

Join us to hear some of these stories and gain insights into the development of this show and its accompanying publication. Spaces are limited and registrations are essential.

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Kim Paton has been the Director of Objectspace since 2015. Her interest is in interdisciplinary exhibition making across the fields of craft, design, architecture and contemporary art. Paton has curated and written extensively on object-based art forms, including essays in the recent publications Cheryl Lucas: Shaped by Schist and Scoria (Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū, 2022) and David Straight: Locations of Interest (Objectspace, 2023). Paton co-authored the book Contemporary Jewellery in Context, published by arnoldsche Art Publishers (2017). She is the co-editor of upcoming publication The Chair: A story of design and making in Aotearoa (2024).