Seating For Civic Engagement
with Evan Roche
We are interested in making furniture for different forms of civic and democratic engagement. For multi-racial, multi-ethnic, pluralistic democracies to thrive, people with different interests, convictions, and lifestyles must have the occasion to engage meaningfully with one another IRL.
We live in an era of social isolation and hyper-polarization. These days we rarely have the opportunity to convene with one another intentionally IRL. The civic fabric of our communities is torn and is in need of urgent repair. Put simply, we need to learn how to engage with one another again; to share spaces designed for the express purpose of seeing one another dimensionally. Connecting to other people, to strangers, is a radical act. A diverse group choosing to gather together, in person, in proximity, can be revolutionary.
Our animating question is this: How can we design seating for a group of people that is intimate enough for them to really see and hear one another? What we are proposing is a physical seating structure (5’X15’) that allows more people (than a table or ring of folding chairs), up to 21, to gather as equals, without sacrificing the intimacy and proximity of which we are so deeply in need. We want individuals to feel some minimum sense of obligation when they step into the structure. That is why we chose to articulate individual seats, even though the benches are continuous.
Accessibility isn’t just a statutory requirement, for us it is central to accommodating a diversity of humans.
The large open wedge in the structure is also important to us. Passersby can witness and observe and interrupt; the conversation is never closed off or exclusive to those already within the structure. Context/place are not afterthoughts. They are acknowledged in an unmistakable way.
All seats are the same, those gathering are the audience for one another, there is no stage. There is enough walkway space for people to enter and exit the structure whenever they want. Some gatherings in the structure can be curated around specific issues or used as a tool for community deliberation and conflict resolution.
The seating structure is designed to be safe, affordable and easy to assemble and take apart. It is stored compactly in a crate. It can be built and broken down over and over again as needed. Each piece/part of the structure is light enough for a range of ages/bodies to pick up during assembly. It can be assembled for particular occasions, when a community needs to solve a problem, to share stories, get to know one another. When it is no longer needed it is simply stored away. The act of assembling and disassembling the structure becomes a meaningful part of the process.
We look forward to evolving this project.
Funding needed. Please reach out to me directly if you are interested in supporting the Seating For Civic Engagement project.