The Expedio team had a field trip to National Visual Arts Gallery (a.k.a Balai Seni Visual Negara) to check out the top 20 shortlisted entries for the #KLAF2018 KL CHAIR COMPETITION!
Here’s some personal review on the KLAF 2018 from our Technical Director, Ang Tee Chian.
From my own personal view as a designer (Do note that this is my own personal view and I'm open to discussions directed to me as long as not malicious)
I would call this more of an art design/art installation competition, not so much a product design competition. Reason being that most of the designs are not really for the mass production and are mostly more custom and one offs.
I would call this a Malaysian chair competition and not KL chair competition. Reason is that I grew up in KL but none of the designs spoke of KL identity to me. Most were talking about multi racial, some about anyaman, some about discarded waste, political situation etc. I couldn't connect any that spoke KL. I think they wasn't an in depth understanding of what and how is the KL sub culture different from say Penang or JB
the overuse of KL as meeting point of the 2 rivers and deriving inspiration from it like using mud and tin mining. A mud chair doesn't give me the feel that it is a KL chair
A lot of us went with high hopes of seeing something interesting but most left not knowing what we have just saw
I personally could not make a decision to vote for which I thought should win, because I couldn't find one that shouted to me that they are the winner
Everyone’s opinion defers, so here’s a compilation of the finalist chairs. What’s your take?
