Sicilian designer Matteo Guarnaccia has visited the most populous countries in the world and collaborated with local makers to create a seating design in each country as part of his Cross Cultural Chairs project.
The results, which were unveiled alongside a dedicated book as part of the BASE exhibition at Milan design week, include a chair for cross-legged sitting and an uncomfortable seat inspired by the politics of Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro.
The Cross Cultural Chairs project was exhibited at Milan design week
Guarnaccia's "freestyle research" project saw him spend a month in each country ? visiting Brazil, Mexico, Japan, Indonesia, China, India, Russia and Nigeria ? and asking the first people he encountered what they thought of as the "local chair". Aware of his limited perspective as "a white man raised in Europe", he collaborated with a local designer in each location to produce a one-off design, incorporating the aesthetics and culture of that place and analysing how context can shape our concept of sitting.
The Brazilian chair is intentionally uncomfortable to reflect the country's political situation
"My generation wears the same shoes, listens to the same playlists and watches the same movies but do we use the same chairs," Guarnaccia questioned.
"Do we sit the same way" I was driven to understand and see in the first person the impact of globalisation on design among young generations of designers, makers...