My anxious kinship of furniture - an alchemy of making

Abstract

My Anxious Kinship of Furniture is an exploration of personal disadvantages transformed into creative advantages. It is an exploration rooted in autoethnographic methods. It is grounded in the belief that what one creates is an extension of the self, weaving personal narratives into the fabric of design. This project delves into personal experiences with anxiety and aims to use furniture design as a tool for overcoming these challenges. The goal is not merely the creation of products but to try and embody personal struggles in artifacts, thereby sparking a broader conversation about anxiety. The methodology revolves around techniques of intentional self-reflection, taking on an alter-ego, and practicing rituals as autoethnographic tools. The materials are collected from different rituals where the ritual becomes the method and the material. Physical matter, such as human hair, and Japanese oyster shells, typically considered as waste or invasive material, at least on the West Coast of Sweden, are repurposed as symbolic acts of liberation and an alchemy of making.