Pick a Chair, Any Chair
Story Joana Vaz
Photography So Dong-ho
They seem to sprout from back alleys and parking lots like mushrooms would in an Autumn forest. Almost as diverse in appearance and personality as their owners, they transpire the kind of hopeful loneliness a dog whose owner left for the day might feel. Some of them fit for a marquis (whose fortune was consumed by tragedy and domain fell to ruin), some just look like they were thrown out of an open-space office’s window. All of them stand there, waiting to be given posterior (sorry but not really) purpose.
If you have walked around Seoul, you might have noticed the unbelievable number of apparently stray chairs that line its streets, waiting. In fact, it is a phenomenon that goes well beyond the limits of the Korean capital. Chairs of all shapes, comfort levels, and sizes stand around the capital in what to the untrained eye might seem hectic fashion. To most locals, however, the lone chairs were not abandoned, rather placed. This begs the question: who put them there, and why? Does anyone sit on them? Is a chair still a chair if no one does?
The truth is, these chairs are far from abandoned. They reserve parking spots, allow old Korean ladies to sit and soak in the sun, are a necessity to street stall owners, some are chained to prevent anyone from taking them away, and some specific ones even keep the user warm when they sit outside throughout Winter. That is why, unlike what would happen in most countries I have visited, the Environmental Protection Agency does not collect street chairs (nor does anybody else). That is also why, when I showed my local friend dozens of photos of these chairs, she was able to determine the purpose of most of them at a glance. These chairs are no more void of purpose than the ones in an open-space office. And yet, to me, they always feel eerie, almost out of place.
Ultimately practical objects, chairs have been celebrated by the art of design time and time again. And yet, a chair without a person feels like it lost some of its purpose. But not for everyone. We spoke to So Dong-ho, a Seoul-based art director and furniture designer whose experience includes the Seoul Design Festival of 2019, and who brought these chairs back into the spotlight, making them the main characters of a new narrative: the Street Chairs of Seoul.
Originally an intermittent collection started in collaboration with Amateur Seoul (a group of artists and designers who record Seoul through a variety of media and initiatives), driven by the designer’s appreciation for the high-end chairs and the contrast these daily chairs posed, the Seoul Chairs became a successful Instagram page, and even led to a poster design first printed in 2018. “I recorded the chairs on the street every day so I had some data piled up, and one day I remembered the Chair Collection Poster by the Vitra Design Museum. I thought it would be fun to show the gap between chairs in Seoul that seem to be insignificant and sophisticated chairs designed by masters, so I worked on a poster right away. Just like the layout of the Vitra Design Museum poster.”
The first poster order was around 300, but it sold out. At the request of the Seoul Design Foundation during the exhibition “Amateur Seoul” at the DDP Gallery Moon, 200 more copies were printed. However, “Since the profit was not the goal from the beginning, I will no longer reprint after running out of posters that are currently left.” In So Dong-ho’s words, “I think a lot of people who saw the poster are having fun. When people first saw it, they thought it was a poster by the Vitra Design Museum, but soon realized it wasn’t and started to laugh, but it was exactly what I intended. Seeing this, I thought this project was a success.”
As for the history behind the phenomenon, “It can be said that Seoul started to develop in earnest after the 88' Seoul Olympics. Before that, it was a difficult time for everyone, and shops selling goods and food on the streets sprang up naturally. Since then, the government has tried to stop street vendors, but I think the culture of street vendors still remains and will continue. There are many street chairs in Seoul, especially in Jongno or Jung-gu which are Seoul’s traditional center and retain the image of the old Seoul. Even if they seem abandoned, they were put out for actual use by parking management agents, street vendors, and shops.”
When asked about his plans (before the global pandemic), So Dong-ho claimed to have two aims. “One is to create a book with stories and images of street chairs in Seoul that were not included in the existing posters, and the other is a poster made of 226 “street chairs in Seoul”, as the number of chairs in the original poster of the Vitra Design Museum. The book aims to be made and sold at an upcoming Unlimited Edition (Seoul Art Book Fair), the new poster is planned for exhibition as personal work, and there is no sales plan.”
Context has changed, plans were swayed or scrapped, and going outside has since become a wholly different experience. And yet, the chairs are still there. As I write this, I have collected dozens of pictures of them on my phone and whenever I simply pay attention, I see them there. Sparse, surrounding the cities, dotting the map, holding the fort for people who are not there. Like loyal, silent watchers, these chairs are another of the quirks I have come to love in Korea. Even as I travel around the country, I find these seats spreading around like mushrooms, making me wonder about their life story and bringing the emotional comfort of a pattern. So if you ever come to Korea, look around you when you round a corner, pass a bus stop, walk through a car park. Odds are, the chairs will be there.
You can find the limited edition “Street Chairs of Seoul” poster in our shop.
And So Dong-ho’s socials here:
https://www.instagram.com/sodongho/
https://www.instagram.com/seoul_chairs/