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Cherries

sitting on female transformation

Bevroren — © Parvin Bungeberg de Jong

In the Cherries (2023) collection, discarded chairs are reborn as intimate sculptural objects, crafted from recycled materials such as bridal tulle and women’s tights. Each work embodies traces of the most fundamental subjective female experience: both in aesthetics and in the act of sitting itself.

Phase one: Frozen

Frozen embodies the first phase of female transformation — the moment when a woman feels frozen in the decision of whether or not to have a child. It’s an uncomfortable state, one that feels both full of choice and devoid of it. Hormonal contraception, abortion, the decision to have sex at all — each choice leaves a trace on the body.

The sculptural chair Frozen makes this tension tangible and feelable. Its form evokes frozen flesh, a body caught between desire and control. Sitting in it creates a physical experience of both discomfort and massage — a contradiction mirroring the emotional one.

The work invites men in particular to inhabit this state, to feel the bodily paradox of the “baby question.”

Phase two: Bridal Chair

Bridal Chair represents the second phase of female transformation — the moment when the desire for connection and security takes shape in the form of marriage. The white tulle and fragile materials evoke romance and purity, but also suffocation and fragility.

At first glance, the chair appears inviting, almost gentle, yet it is too delicate to rely on, and it is literally staggering. It questions what is expected of women within the ritual of marriage — surrender, adaptation, and the quiet loss of personal space.

Bridal Chair is both tribute and dissection — a moment between dream and reality, where beauty and limitation intertwine. She is designed for broad hips, so even more interesting for men to seat in.

Phase three: Womb Chair

Womb Chair marks the third phase of female transformation — the moment after birth, when the woman shifts from lover to mother. Constructed from remnants of a child’s seat and wrapped in women’s tights and seemingly soft, skin-like materials, it embodies both tenderness and fatigue. In this phase, sexuality loses its previous purpose; desire gives way to care for another body. The woman becomes space — literally and metaphorically — in which something else lives. The chair captures the merging of love, exhaustion, and loss of self. You can even try, at own risk, placing your child in it — a soft, uneasy echo of the original sense of safety.

About Lieve de Vreede

Lieve de Vreede (1993) is a visual artist and philosopher. She searches the boundary between furniture and sculpture, with an interest in the tension between comfort and discomfort. She examines the literal use experience, but also, crucially, the visual, psychological, and sometimes even moral one.

Bruidsstoeltje — © Parving Bungeberg de Jong

Baarmoeder kinderstoel — © Parving Bungeberg de Jong

Andere deelnemers

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Andere deelnemers

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