Photographs and Text by So Young Kim
BA (Hons) Interaction Design Arts (Year 2)
I first discovered the abandoned chairs while living in Korea. When I moved to a more suburban area, I started noticing these broken-down old chairs by the side of the roads, that didn’t look like anyone was sitting on. I started collecting photos of them because the chairs just looked so out of context. Later, I realised they were used to mark parking spots – preventing cars from illegally parking in front of the shops, restaurants, or houses.
The chairs with wheels are placed mostly in front of shops so that they can move the chairs around whenever their customers needed a parking spot. Also, there were stories of people accidentally crashing into the chairs, and the chair owners would fine them ridiculously for the damage of their ‘already-broken’ chairs. And many of the chairs in front of houses had strings tied around their legs, looking as if the chairs have been captivated!
It was great to see how these broken chairs were put to use, instead of being thrown away.
