by radical domesticist and self-taught “empath-carpenter” Dendra Flume at The Velvet Spoon Centre for Applied Sentiment
Is this the world’s most elaborate prank staged for a single, unwilling audience member? Furniture Has Feelings Too feels like it might be, as you walk amongst items reminiscent of a Lidl clearance aisle. Dendra Flume describes her practice as “emotional joinery,” which she defines as “building psychic bridges between the domestically oppressed and the ergonomically repressed.” In plainer English: she glues googly eyes to chairs and tells you they’re sad. She insists her work “challenges the tyranny of sitting,” but what it really challenges is your ability to keep a straight face in public.
The exhibition unfolds in a series of “living rooms” arranged across the gallery, each one dimly lit and smelling faintly of various oils. The first installation, Chaise Longing, features a Victorian fainting couch covered in wet velvet, onto which Flume has sewn dozens of tiny mouths. Every few seconds, one opens to murmur, “stay.” A laminated statement nearby explains that the piece “explores the clinginess of memory.”
Section Two: Recliner’s Lament is just a La-Z-Boy submerged in a shallow kiddie pool, slowly absorbing water. The sign says this is about “the drowning of leisure in the capitalist tide”.
At the centre of the show stands Table for None, a massive dining table with every leg replaced by a mannequin leg in a fishnet stocking. The table surface is covered in handwritten break-up letters, all signed “Yours, Ottoman.” Visitors are encouraged to take a seat, but the chairs, each with a speaker hidden inside, start whispering passive-aggressive comments as soon as you sit down. Mine told me, “You never notice me unless you spill something.”
The pièce de résistance is The Credenza Will See You Now, a therapy session with a credenza wearing a tweed blazer. You’re invited to sit across from it and “share a suppressed domestic truth.” I said, “I don’t think this should be in a museum,” and a hidden printer spat out a slip reading, “Projection acknowledged.”
The sound design throughout is unrelentingly earnest: creaking wood, sighing cushions, and, occasionally, sobbing. Every corner is staffed by a gallery assistant in beige overalls who offers you a drink “in solidarity.” One told me they were “in emotional residency here” and refused to elaborate.
The show closes with Exit Wound, a narrow hallway lined with broken IKEA parts suspended from the ceiling by yarn. As you pass through, a motion sensor triggers the sound of a coffee table scraping across the floor.
I’m sorry, but this is less art than it is a trip to the dump narrated by someone who once took an improv class. The gift shop sells tote bags that read “My Furniture Has Boundaries” and a $120 “empathy hammer” described as “non-violent carpentry equipment for consensual assembly.” I left empty-handed, unless you count the dull ache in my soul.
One star. This wasn’t an art show, it was a cry for help. I hope the artist gets the assistance she needs.
