Careful with the Chair!

“The piece was an experiment, but you can sit in it,” says Pratt student Jude Helsin-di Leo of his fragile-looking slipcast porcelain chair. The chair, which is Helsin-di Leo’s submission to Pratt’s juried end-of-year project (This year’s entries had to address the theme of “risk”), has a hollow rim and solid seat; its load is borne by a triangulation in the lower back area. “Materials speak to what they want to do,” says Helsin-di Leo. “I like to push them beyond what we would expect of them.”