What would it mean for the world if we were to become more aware of the ambivalence we encounter in our interactions with one another? What might sustainable relationships involve? Polite Furniture engages with the complexities and contradictions that expose us to our ordinary human frailty in day to day life. Emotional Sustainability means choosing with care the parts you are prepared to play in the dramas of others - friends, family, governments, and nations. Acknowledge your limitations whenever you have the opportunity. The most creative place you can be and probably the hardest work you will ever do, is to remain in the audience.
Polite Furniture began as an artwork, a critical intervention in the retail environment. Armed with a Masters thesis of theoretical material, Polite Furniture aimed to perform a direct and observable challenge to the conventional and learned responses of ordinary consumers in the Old Spitalfields Market, London EC1, and later on at the famous Truman Brewery, Brick Lane. Click here to shop. Click here to preview Rehearsal For Intimacy. Subscribe via the contact page for Visual Food and occasional updates about this playful but serious project.