Project Statement
Please Seat Yourself is a family of designed interactive objects that playfully invite the user to discover joy, connection and mindfulness through a new way of experiencing the familiar. The objects consist of common wooden chairs that have been painted and cast into textured cement bases with curved bottoms. Due to the base, the normally straightforward experience of sitting in a chair is shifted and the body becomes activated by movement. In this work, the use of common chairs is a reference to the ordinariness of everyday life and concrete represents the parts of life that are weighing us down. By subverting the function of these common materials, the chair and the concrete, I can transform them from something mundane to magical, bringing about a great deal of surprise in the process. The playful interaction with each object acts as a metaphorical invitation to choose to find joy in the everyday world as we know it.
(Please note: Objects not intended for interaction within the gallery space, sand bags have been added to inhibit full movement.)
Artist Statement
As an artist and designer I am interested in shifting the perception of what is known and taught about where things belong in the world through craft. By transforming and uplifting ordinary materials that are often overlooked I can call to attention the beauty in the everyday. This transformation shifts the common into the realm of uncommon, allowing the audience to see the material in a way that celebrating its qualities while honoring the materiality in order to see the familiar through a new lens. By doing so, I urge the viewer to notice what is taken for granted around us and recognize the limitations we learn from society. Through the unexpected shift in materials and the playful nature of the objects, my work aims to bring joy into spaces and begin to heal a joy deficit that has been created from generations of people concealing their potential to evade judgment and ridicule that comes with trying to find belonging in a culture that encourages conformity.
About Joyce Campbell
Joyce Campbell is an artist/designer/maker/organizer who grew up in a working class home in Olympia, WA. Her use of common materials is her way of connecting to the audience through familiarity to cultivate a relationship between the user, the work and herself. After receiving an A.A.A. in Industrial Design at the Art Institute of Seattle in 2004, she returned to her hometown of Olympia, WA to receive her BA in Sculpture and Art History from the Evergreen State College in 2008. In the spring of 2023 she received her MFA from the Applied Craft + Design program at Pacific Northwest College of Art/Willamette University. In the studio, Campbell combines her art and design backgrounds by crafting playful home decor and furniture through a sculptural lens.
MFA in Applied Craft + Design
