Seating Assignment - Sawtooth School for Visual Art

Curatorial Statement
Essay by Deirdre Visser
Digital Catalog
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WOMEN IN CONTEMPORARY CHAIRMAKING AND CRAFT EDUCATION

Sawtooth School for Visual Art and Salem College, both in Winston–Salem, NC, are proud to present Seating Assignment: Women in Contemporary Chairmaking and Craft Education, an exhibition featuring 15 contemporary women artists who specialize in furniture making and view education as a core component of their practice. The exhibition, on display at Sawtooth’s Eleanor and Egbert Davis Gallery, will open with a reception on Saturday, March 23, 2024, from 5-7 pm and remain on view through Saturday, May 11, 2024.

Seating Assignment features Katie Bister, Christina Boy, Annie Evelyn, Sophie Glenn, Aspen Golann, Elsa Hoffman, Joyce Lin, Wendy Maruyama, Laura Mays, Stacy Motte + Eleanor Rose, Sabiha Mujtaba, Ellie Richards, Janine Wang, and Kimberly Winkle.

The show was curated by Rebecca Juliette-Duex, Sawtooth’s 2023 Gondring Resident in Woodworking, and organized with Rebecca Silberman, Sawtooth’s Director of Operations; Josie Vogel, Sawtooth’s Director of Wood Programs; and Dr. Rosa Otero, Associate Professor of Design at Salem College and curator of the SIDE Chair Library.

Dimensional objects are able to convey deep meaning and offer a tangible connection to the maker and to the history of the object itself. These chairs, collected together in a critical mass under one roof, communicate a presence that speaks not only to the work of the individual, but also to the collective whole of women involved in furniture design and manufacture. The hope is that this exhibition will not only shine light on the work that is being done today and project it into the future, but also reflect that light back in time to the women who were there all along and whose contributions have been forgotten, intentionally or otherwise.

-Rebecca Juliette-Duex, Seating Assignment curator

Curatorial Statement

Sawtooth School for Visual Art and Salem College are located just a few miles from each other in Winston-Salem, NC. At their core, the missions of the two institutions are the same — community focused education. Sawtooth has been a hub for arts education in Winston-Salem for nearly 80 years, offering classes for all ages across many subject areas. Salem College is now in its 252nd year as an institution of higher learning for women, the oldest in the country.

Salem is also home to the Sutton Initiative for Design Education [SIDE] Chair Library. The SIDE Chair Library is a curated collection of almost 50 chairs that are considered historically significant in design and are currently still in production. Salem students and community members can not only visit the library, they are encouraged to interact with the chairs — to sit in them, turn them upside down, measure them, and ponder their construction and materials.

Salem College’s women students, the primary users of this library, are also the least represented by gender and diversity and, as such, have become a driving force for organizing the exhibition. This exhibition is an opportunity to show students that women are creating chairs that celebrate a new way forward; women who are reimagining design to fit their own bodies and who are reconfiguring classic shapes to speak about their own experience in a field where they have been historically excluded, along with those in the BIPOC and LGBTQ+ communities.

To honor the missions of Sawtooth and Salem College and the communities that they continue to serve, the exhibition primarily features artists whose practices include a strong connection to education. Salem College students are a driving force for organizing the exhibition and there will be opportunity for collaboration between students, artists, and objects. The curatorial team also hopes that the exhibition can inspire the public and illuminate the possibilities within design, seating, and craft.

Permission to dream.

Read a new essay by Deirdre Visser, commissioned specifically for this exhibition.

Visser is a curator, educator, visual artist, and woodworker. She is also the author of Joinery, Joists and Gender: A History of Woodworking for the 21st Century, the first publication of its kind to survey the long and rich histories of women and gender non-conforming persons who work in wood.

View Full Essay

Browse the Digital Catalog

Click through our digital catalog to see photos of all the works in the exhibition, learn more about the artists in the show and read essays from the show’s curator and curator and author Deirdre Visser.

BROWSE CATALOG

FEATURED IN HYPERALLERGIC

International arts magazine Hyperallergic wrote that, “Seating Assignment centers 15 female designers who are pushing the boundaries of the traditional furniture object…The show promises to present a vision that entices viewers to stand and applaud.”

CONVERSATIONS WITH WOMEN OF WOODWORKING

The Furniture Society has partnered with Katie Thompson, founder of the Women of Woodworking Project, to present a series of Instagram Live interviews with furniture makers and educators included in the exhibition.

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