The Chair: A story of design and making in Aotearoa

“The premise of The Chair is simple. One object type explored from the earliest documented period of local production through to today. This is not the definitive history of chair design and making in Aotearoa. Instead, it is a story of ad hoc research and discovery… An object has ancestry, nothing is entirely new, nothing is its own island. By moving through the chairs in this exhibition we find connections and inspiration between the works; we see the lines they throw to the past, and to design and craft beyond our shores.”

^{Foreword, Kim Paton}

Published in 2024 by Objectspace on the occasion of:

The Chair: A story of design and making in Aotearoa
2 December 2023 – 3 March 2024
Curated by Kim Paton
Objectspace, Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland

Exquisitely designed and rich in full-colour images, The Chair features new writing on the 110 chairs included in the exhibition and photography taken across the country: together telling a fascinating story of design and making in Aotearoa.

Twenty-six writers have worked to bring each chair to life with descriptions, histories, and their unique perspectives, with contributions from: Mike Barrett, Zoe Black, Pete Bossley, Graeme Burgess, Andrew Clark, Hamish Coney, William Cottrell, Dan and Emma Eagle, Peter Herbert, Zoe Ikin, Paul Jenkin, Bronwyn Lloyd, Victoria McAdam, Bill Mckay, Jamie McLellan, Francis McWhannell, Anna Miles, Mark Pennington, Antony Phillips, Damian Skinner, Rigel Sorzano, Linda Tyler, John Walsh, Rick Wells and Carin Wilson.

Featuring new photography by Sam Hartnett, David Straight, Alan Knowles, Nick Beadle, Tom Teutenberg, Sarah Rowlands and Cheska Brown alongside sourced and archival imagery.

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Editors: Kim Paton and Victoria McAdam
Copyeditor: Anna Hodge
Exhibition documentation and cover photograph: Sam Hartnett

Publication design: inhouse.nz
Typefaces: The Future and The Future Mono
Printer: Everbest Printing Company, China

With support from Inhouse, Simon James and John McCabe