modern victorian loveseats carved from carrara marble mark anna pesonen's sculptural debut

Two-seater loveseats in forms of brutalism and modernism

Image director and stylist Anna Pesonen flew to Carrara, Italy and sojourned in the marble quarry for two years. She and some local artisans had been sculpting the blocks of marble in a workshop, but the multi-disciplinary creative had kept her lips and social-media feed sealed as to what she was brewing. As soon as the right time has come, Pesonen unveils ‘DISCOURSE,’ her limited-edition capsule of collectible, functional marble sculptures that give Victorian loveseats a modern and brutalist twist.

‘DISCOURSE’ is a fitting name for the anthology of Carrara marble-carved chairs. The design of the sculptural pieces resemble intertwined seats, converged as an allusion to a course of in-depth conversation that has run and settled in. Pesonen says that ‘the works are related to concepts of liminality, disconnection, the solidarity generation, solastalgia, identity & community. my hope is that the seats invite us into discourse – with ourselves as well as with other individuals, groups, or ideologies.’

images courtesy of Anna Pesonen | photos by Nicola Gnesi

Anna Pesonen sculpts marble chairs for introspective state

Anna Pesonen steps into her introspective state while she wields the stone polisher and sculpts the marble into her desired chair design. She gives birth to two sculptural pieces, one as a nook to steep in the meditative form and the other to dialogue with a seatmate and engage in the exchange of synergy and presence. The single-form ‘Introspection Seat 001’ compels self-reflection and strips the individual from distraction and judgment. Pesonen imagines the single-person seating as a concrete, functional journal that allows the user to check in with themselves, a pause from the continuous external flow of noise, hustle, and worries.

Users who feel the sociable or desire to form relationships grounded in playful, introspective, or even mindless chats may sit down in ‘Dialogue Seat 002.’ Here, two seats are connected side by side, one does not exist without the other. The setting creates a confidentially shared moment between the two sitters, a feeling of unity despite facing different directions. Pesonen says that the chair silently and solidly commands the sitters to do nothing more than sit, together, face to face, ‘to confer, to find solutions, to recognize the human in one another,’ she adds.

Dialogue Seat 002

‘sculpture as a vehicle and site for discourse’

Anna Pesonen brings in the touch of her image director and stylist works as she taps model Ottawa Kwami to stage an editorial shooting for her capsule collection, right in the marble quarry at the top of the Apuan Alps in Northwest Italy. The result gathers the material’s home and its new forms in the same sphere, all positioned before the eyes of the makers and artisans. Here, the marble works command a metaphysical atmosphere of presence and peace that surrounds the sitters when occupied.

‘For my first works in marble, the starting point was to create sculptures which not only come with a function for the everyday but go beyond that and propose a non-material quality. The works reflect on the challenges our global community faces; the effects of intensification of divisive politics, misinformation media, growing separation; and propose sculpture as a vehicle and site for introspection and discourse as counteragent,’ says Pesonen.

model Ottawa Kwami sits in Dialogue Seat 002