Conversations Pieces

Jay Sae Jung Oh: For me as a person who studied both art and design, the difference between artists and designers comes from the purpose of their work. My name is Jay Sae Jung Oh. I am a designer based in Seattle, Washington.

Design allows me to communicate with people in much more familiar manner than art, I think. Like, many ordinary people have this stereotype that art is difficult to approach and need to interpret or analyze to fully understand.

Liliana Ovalle: It kind of merges within your everyday life without having this separation that perhaps art could have.

My name is Liliana Ovalle. I’m a product designer from Mexico City.

Jay Sae Jung Oh: I make all kinds of furnitures and products, but my favorite is chairs, because chairs have this full physical contact with humans, more than any other furniture. When I’m thinking or reading, it just provides me very personal space and that allows me to engage with this object more closely and directly.

Liliana Ovalle: And at the end of the day, also chairs are places for socializing or they’re part of coming together, they’re part of like, perhaps having a meal or sitting together. So I think it’s, it’s a piece that can be redefined.

So I designed this piece as a way to make reference of when people use staircases to sit down and just take a moment. I was very interested to capture this idea of appropriating this space that is normally for transit to make it, like, more permanent and somehow change its use.

Jay Sae Jung Oh: Where the design is heading right now? I don’t know. But, the boundary of profession in design seem to be kind of disappearing more and more. For example, like fashion designer design, furniture or products, vice versa. Or industrial designer can be UX or UI designer. So, furniture like mine look like art.

Liliana Ovalle: So I think now there’s a lot of conversation of how can design be applied in different ways. I think it’s good to, to stop and say, well, what are we doing here? What makes it a design? How come, like, an object that is manufacturer-produced is design, and perhaps a chair that is carved by a craftsman in the mountain, it’s not? As designers, we really need to broaden up our understanding of what design is.