Designer Taekhan Yun’s parents run an English school in Cambodia. One day, during a visit, he noticed how the kids were constantly shifting in their chairs, trying to get comfortable. “It made me realize how naturally furniture and spaces are designed around adult standards, while children are often expected to adapt and conform to those environments,” he tells Colossal. That’s when the idea was born to not only create functional pieces that would better suit the students’ needs but to invite them to create their own.
Yun has always been interested in participatory creative projects, especially because of “the unexpected outcomes that emerge when people from different backgrounds come together to create something collectively,” he says. “Children, in particular, tend to view objects with a freedom that is less constrained by function, convention, or rules. Their choices and interventions often transform not only the final result but also the process itself.”
Through a series of hands-on workshops, Yun invited the children to conceive of whimsical chairs and birdhouses, first by inviting them to draw with colored pencils and then sculpt prototypes out of clay. The artist then fashioned their dream designs into full-scale wooden objects that exactly translate their ideas. The result is a joyful and inviting collection of functional artworks that celebrate community. Each object is lovely on its own, but when gathered with its peers, the group is even more vibrant and inspirational, much like the way ideas can expand and evolve through brainstorming and learning.
Yun plans to continue presenting similar workshops and is currently coordinating a couple in South Korea and Saudi Arabia. “Working with children has gradually shifted my focus from the final objects themselves to the ways children perceive, imagine, and interpret the world around them,” he says. “I hope to expand the chair project internationally in the near future by collaborating with children from different cultural and social backgrounds around the world.”
See more on the artist’s Instagram.
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