Sunday Arts Magazine

19 Oct 2020

Holly Board talks to David about “Stool Dolly”.

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Holly Board talks to David about “Stool Dolly”.

In collaboration with Melbourne Fringe’s Fringe Furniture program, the Naomi Milgrom Foundation today released the design for the MPavilion 2020 stool, by local interior designer and architect Holly Board in partnership with Peter Grove, both of BoardGrove Architects. The commission—titled STOOL DOLLY—is part of MPavilion’s response to a pandemic year with greater investment in local artists and designers, while also being an extension of the Fringe Gender Equality Initiative, supported by the Naomi Milgrom Foundation. From December until the end of the MPavilion 2020 season, the stool will be used across multiple physical locations in and around Melbourne.

Responding to the necessity of ‘physical distancing’ in this time of pandemic, Stool Dolly considers how individuals can informally create separation through spatial means. Reminiscent of children’s paper dolls—where folded paper is cut into a simple human form, before becoming a train of people connected by their stretched-out arms—each plywood Stool Dolly chair can be positioned in two states: at ‘arm’s length’ (1.5m), or interlocked. When used at MPavilion events, the resulting configuration allows its users to be safely apart, together.