03 Magazine: April 05, 2024

Arts | Magazine 69
The 1800s whalebone chair is not in the exhibition –
it’s too fragile to be loaned. Instead, a one-to-one replica
is in its place. Made with the benefit of contemporary
three-dimensional printing technologies, the 2023 model
is both one of the oldest and newest chairs on display.
How did you decide what to include/omit?
The research process culminated in a long list of around
300 chairs. Some we couldn’t locate or get access to.
Despite this it was difficult to narrow it down – first to
110 chairs for the Auckland showing, and then harder still
to select a group of chairs to travel to Christchurch for
exhibition in our modestly sized satellite space.
Ultimately each chair was chosen as it offered an
interesting and purposeful reflection on design and
making in Aotearoa – because its story contributes
something meaningful to our material culture.
How did you source so many chairs, and how long did
it take to come together?
It began with the collections of major cultural institutions,
quickly evolved into a series of conversations and
interviews, and ended with a public call-out and hundreds
of suggestions submitted to our tip line. One chair led
to another. Spreadsheets and paperwork grew and grew,
and eventually chairs from across the country (and the
years) were brought together – around a year after our
research began.
Any particularly challenging chairs to source?
There are many chairs missing from historical records
and from this project: we had institutional loan requests
declined, and chairs that we searched for but couldn’t
find. We met many people who no longer design or
make, most of whom shifted course in their careers with
little lasting record of their own work.
PAGE 66 & LEFT: Installation views of The
Chair: a story of design and making in Aotearoa at
Objectspace, Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland.
Endaxi Design’s ‘Ena’ suite of sofa and chairs from
1988 was commissioned for an Auckland tanning salon
and subsequently ordered by Bev Smaill for her home.
Smaill’s three-piece now resides in museum collections,
split between Te Papa and Auckland Museum. With
its bright-orange ball and cone feet, tubular steel and
excessively bolstered upholstery (the sofa resembles the
back seat of a car), Ena is a stand-alone example of the
Memphis style designed and made in New Zealand.
We were extremely disappointed at not being
permitted to loan an Ena chair from one of our public
collections and couldn’t locate any in private hands. We
decided to include the chair in the publication despite it
not featuring in the show – I’d love to see the suite in the
flesh one day.
Tell us a bit about a few of the chairs travelling
to Christchurch?
The set of chairs en route to Christchurch are diverse –
with the earliest made in the 1870s and the most recent
finished last year. One of the most electrifying objects I
encountered researching The Chair is included – a chair
made around 1890–1910 and attributed to a woman
maker (a rare thing in any decade of the exhibition).
Its base form follows an 18th-century British design,
and it is adorned with intricate chip-carving. Imagining a
woman undertaking the spectacular surface treatment
at this time is awe-inspiring and made me rethink my
assumptions about life in the late 1800s in New Zealand.
The group also includes a significant chair
by Humphrey Ikin, one of our most important
contemporary furniture makers who is often cited
as the forefather of Pacific minimalism or late Pacific
modernism. His singular approach to materials is striking
– he composes furniture to reveal the making process,
resulting in a kind of material intuition.