Date of Award
Spring 6-1-2024
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Fine Arts (MFA)
Department
Furniture
First Advisor
Pete Oyler
Second Advisor
Lane Myer
Third Advisor
Harry Allen
Abstract
The owner of the laundromat by the corner of my temporarily sublet room in New York once told me his life story randomly on the last day I went to dry my bedding. We had never spoken before because we both weren't sure if the other spoke Mandarin.
It’s a long and intricate one, so long and intricate that he could write his own book and become the protagonist of a realist novel. If one word could describe this world and the life we all live, it should be “Wuchang.” According to various authoritative Chinese-to-English dictionaries, it could mean unpredictable, uncertain, transient, and phantasmagorical.
It’s the phantasmagorical nature of the world that creates our stories and makes everyone the protagonist of their life, including objects. When I open an old cabinet, I see the two faces of its life. One side is the perfect paint, with some careless scratches and carefully replaced knobs and locks. The other side is the unfinished drawer cases, filled with dust and emptiness. Every object lost in time is a capsule of stories and memories about living, making, observing, and experiencing.
This is a story about the afterlife of objects, as well as encounters and memories. I trust the randomness of life and serendipity to meet these objects and leave my own marks on them. I rewrite their stories based on who they were and who I am.
I wander in the river of time, flowing with pieces of memories, and seek the goldfish that could swim in the gully between the forgotten and now.
Collection Statement:
Lost Stories presents a collection of furniture and objects featuring a deconstructive reimagination of antique furniture with the aim of passing on the stories of people and objects lost in time. Encountering furniture that has outlasted the unknown lives of those who created them, lived with them, and left marks on them, the collection intends to evoke a sense of humanity by delving into objects’ encapsulated stories and memories. By deconstructing thrifted antique furniture into components, Lost Stories returns furniture to a raw material state and liberates narratives and puzzles of the past from their preconceived forms. The new materiality includes elements such as dirty paint, scratches, glue marks, and dust. By collaging the deconstructed materials into a minimalistic form and adding the illustrative silhouette of the original object back to the new design, the collection continues the reincarnation of an object as well as the story of life behind it in a sustainable way.
Recommended Citation
Huang, Yuxuan, "Lost Stories" (2024). Masters Theses. 1207.
https://digitalcommons.risd.edu/masterstheses/1207
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.