QINGTAI ( BOLD STOOL Urushi / Daqi series)
A series of Bold stools in layers of lacquer, the material that was registered in its own right and translated, through modern design, into a common ground where it now stands and straddles. Not so much as design with material as design for material; the Bold stool series is indeed, a bold and all very mellow embodiment of spirit of the ancient, that which has travelled, bearing the weight of everyday aesthetics pleasurably now.
Unfamiliar to many, the Neolithic-old material is rather inspirational to Yona andMing. Fascinated by its natural qualities, its texture and tactility, the lacquering process and the stories behind it, the designer duo approached traditional craftsmanship with care, and a mission to maximise its deserved spotlight. As one of the oldest materials, lacquer served a popular decorative use in ancient China. Yet unconventional and somewhat moody, it is not subject to mass production and thus is slowly disappearing. It embodies layers of depth in a colour that changes over the years. Like wine which welcomes its connoisseurs, it opens itself layer by layer, to those who long for too eager a touch.
Yona and Ming were first introduced to lacquer during their residency in China. They recognized its artistic value instantly, and the potential, with what precision, to visualise that fundamental human touch. This is when design chimes in. As a medium it is in perpetual search for a body to carry and celebrate. With their background in industrial design, it was less an intentional search than the bodily form revealing itself in an organic mix of concept and technology. The Bold stools were found in a new light. Made from paulownia wood that had been carved into plump, curvaceous and showing forms, these minimal shapes are designed and crafted, with long deliberation, to enlarge the effects of various lacquering techniques. No resin or glue was employed, instead, the designers used simple mortise and tenon-style joints to secure the legs to the seat, before their being coated in lacquer. The Dezeen Awards 2020 has awarded the Bold stool series as the highly commended seating design of the year.
It is surprisingly fresh to look at a seamless form with all the while very soft shapes. A trick modern design does to function, and craftsmanship to material. As if the reconcilable duality found expression and a soul, with slight dip, they take on a sculptural sophistication, beholding beauty in its very subtlety. One serves an equivalent of its own, and to another and the Bold stool series as a whole, echoing bold attempts of the designers in the first place, to give lacquer a shape, a body and soul. Yet these attempts, selective and grinding, spread in long stretches of production time, are in fact and hindsight, so fateful a decision, resting on so fortuitous a discovery. What then was neatly attached, layer after layer, to a surface and later a whole stand-alone piece, was more than the material itself but the weight it carries, from the land faroff, to everyday aesthetics of our times.
The Bold stools are materiality embodied, or better, the recognition, affect and pleasure of materiality renewed. They are to fulfil the ‘function’ of art to be seen, touched and even used. Polished in an inclusive yet not indicative manner, the stools are but easy oriental symbols, though their fate is no stranger to that of cultural objects, to be possessed and passed down. But the faith against Western and exotic idealism is kept tightly within the piece, the physical and rather affective evidence, attesting to no magic formula but modern aesthetic in the age of reproduction. Precisely, the personification of bond and balance between tradition and modern, material and craft, matter and memory, object and spirit. The designer duo Yona and Ming speak to a generation of Chinese designers living in the West, who, like themselves, are confronted with a profuse history of traditions and craftsmanship when working outside its borders. The Bold stool series in a way provides a useful answer sheet, to the very question of culture and difference: the way tradition is embedded in modern design, is the way contemporaneity is given meaning. There, the value of it all is guarded with hues of tenderness, of modesty and comprehension, where it shines brighter and ceremonially, with true expressions of nature and more reflections of light.
This version inspired by the moss on the stone, simply we call it QINGTAI, means the moss.
Special thanks to [FAN JIANJUN & CHIU FANCHIH LACQUERWARE STUDIO]