Furniture, website. Commissioned by the 11th Gwangju Biennale and Lafayette Anticipations, Paris. Now installed as museum furniture in Centre Pompidou, Paris; Museum of Man, Paris; Art Sonje Center, Seoul; and the Seodaemun Museum of Natural History, Seoul

Ergonomic Futures is a multi-part project, which asks questions about body normativity through the lens of speculative evolution. Specifically, this work comes out of interviews with paleo-anthropologists, evolutionary biologists, and genetic engineers. To each I have asked: What are future scenarios for imagining new types of human bodies, and how might these bodies cast relief on conversations about “fitness” and ability in the present day?

Working from my interviews, I am making different types of ergonomic seating for these future bodies (in collaboration with Bureau V), which now serve as functional “benches” in fine art and natural history museums. Additionally, I designed a website (in collaboration with Luke Gould and Afonso Martins), featuring my first ever piece of online literature, which draws upon the aforementioned interviews.

Stills of of the website

Installation View: The 11th Gwangju Biennale, curated by Maria Lind. This seat, made of walnut and composite wood veneer, was fabricated by Yong Chul Kim

This veneer is made out of recycled wood, so the wood patterns are entirely fictional.

Installation View: Faisons de l’inconnu un allié (Joining Forces with the Unknown), Lafayette Anticipations, Paris

This seat, made of cast fiberglass and Soft Touch coating, was produced by Dirk Meylaerts and Aude Mohammedi Merquiol of Lafayette Anticipations—and manufactured by Creaform, France

Installation View: Centre Pompidou, Paris

Video documentation of a lecture about the project at e-flux, New York

An essay version of the lecture, published in e-flux journal #98

A conversation about Ergonomic Futures with Anna Colin, Dis

Chimeras in drag, a conversation with Adam Gibbons on Schlosspost