TURNING TABLES
BY FILIP BERG
3 DECEMBER 2020 – 13 JANUARY 2021
TURNING TABLES (0.2) by Filip Berg continues the project and investigation into the history and function of the table. While the chair has long been a central focal point within the modernist canon, little attention has been given to the table – de- spite its ancient role and importance as a social object; today rivalled only by the smartphone.
In society, many of the most important social interactions and ceremonies are still conducted at and around tables. It can both connect or divide us; the table is an absolutely fundamental site in culture. The show presents abstracted historical and contemporary table typologies while proposing its transcendence into an object of art. The table is deemed as a politicized and gendered design object with a conti- nually shifting social meaning and function. From the Biblical tale of The Last Sup- per with only men seated, to the ornate and virtuous dressing of table legs in Victo- rian England, to modern minimalism of Scandinavian design or Solage‘s album „a seat at the table „. The table is still used to overturn power structures every day.
The show „Turning Tables (0.2) „is a part of material history and research of the table as a sociocultural object and questions the table‘s fundamental relationship to functionality by bringing it outside any direct utilitarian logic. „Turning Tables“ sear- ches for potential, asking for reflection, proposing new ways of using table design for change.The title refers to the English idiom that suggests ways in which power can be negotiated and redistributed at, over and through the table; while arriving
at an imagined future, premised on new forms of sociality, politics, and ways of living – with and without tables.
