Search anything

Close search
Back to Programme Archive

(Archive) The House Is a Marionette

Formed by a chain of external forces, if the house is a marionette, who should pull the strings?

This project was part of DDW 2023
A marionette

The marionette house explores the boundaries between a human and an object: a re-humanization of the (non-)still life. A collection of awareness-oriented, instead of function-oriented, speculative furniture, challenges the cause and effect between the body and its immediate habitat.

What is human - If objects came to life

Blurring the line between a human and an object, the furniture responds, changes, moves, and activates one another and the space, following the human who uses them. They fit, cater, and care for her.

A bed hugs the body in response to the movements of a restless night and opens the shutters in the morning to allow soft light to come in. A bath fills and lifts a rug that becomes a partition wall, creating a temporary semi-isolated sanctuary. A dining table stretches and transforms from a table for two to a table for many that can host guests, only when the laundry is hung. A roof contracts and creates an enclosed refuge, allowing a south-facing warm seat to emerge that comforts the body and separates the space into a place of one’s own.

This carrier bag of a house, that could hold different stories and different moments, is formed from within. Within its objects and its habitants. The house is no longer the familiar marionette, formed by a chain of external forces, it is formed and continues to reform by whoever lives in it.

Play video

A facade

A table

A house