You might remember Pioneers of Change, a festival of Dutch design, fashion and architecture, conceived and curated by Renny Ramakers. It took place over two long weekends on Governors Island, New York in September of 2009 and brought in over 25.000 visitors, many smiling faces and great reviews.
Eleven former Commanding Officer houses were transformed by Dutch architects, designers, artists working together with New York based designers, students, the elderly, Native American bead master, to name a few.
Chairs returned by Franck Bragigand
For one of the houses we asked Franck Bragigand to paint and furnish the inside in preparation for Open Talks that were to take place on the opening day. Franck has a great capacity to transform the world using only a coat of paint. He’ll cover anything, but never bring in something new. To seat the audience, used chairs were brought in from all over New York, and Franck had them painted by our team of volunteers.
Open Talks took place, and after the event, Franck returned the newly painted chairs back to New York, sneaking them onto people’s front porches, neatly tucking them in front of the Guggenheim, or conveniently propping them in front of a public telephone in neighbourhoods from PSI and Guggenheim to the Bronx.
Submit your photos
If you were one of the lucky ones who found a chair and sat on it, or took it home, send us a photo to [email protected] for publication. We’re sure Franck would want to know.
For more information on Pioneers of Change, click here.