Installation view
Scaffolding, found wooden objects, desk lamps
Scaffolding, found wooden objects, desk lamps
Scaffolding, found wooden objects, desk lamps
Site-specific installation with scaffolding, found wooden objects, desk lamps
Coronation Chair 2010 is modelled after the original oaken chair kept at Westminster Abbey in London, made for King Edward I to enclose the famous Stone of Scone, which has since been returned to Scotland. Every monarch including the present one has been crowned in that chair since Edward II in 1308, except Edward V and Edward VIII, who were not crowned.
Coronation Chair is a poor man's version made up entirely of wooden objects scavenged on the street, in skips and outside evicted squats in South East London over the course of a year. These found pieces of furniture, held together by nothing but a few screws, once served as doors, tables and window frames in people's homes. Instead of being supported by four gilt lions, the chair sits on scaffolding borrowed from local building sites. As if to compensate for its shortcomings, it reaches all the way to the ceiling, piercing right through it.
Coronation Chair raises questions of class, tradition and the mechanisms of power that govern Britain. It talks of a substitution in the wake of absence, it is a celebration of failure, challenging the musty scaffolding of everything once held sacred.