Life is Suite

"A sofa is discovered in the back streets of Deptford. Sad looking, with its broken leg and ripped leather, its fate was to be left out on the streets, damp and rejected. Thinking this was not a good way for it to go, Raw Nerve took it back to the studio. It sparked the group's imagination as we considered all the things it may have experienced in its lifetime.

It could have been a child's castle or a hiding place. Perhaps it would have felt two young lovers languishing in it. Or it could have witnessed a gangster robbery or the tragedy of a failed marriage. A collection of many lost objects buried within it could have formed through the years. Or it could have remembered all the many conversations and secrets it has heard whilst inhabiting various living rooms.
Rather than the sofa being a functional object, we imagined the sofa as a living breathing thing having lived its own life, albeit unconscious to all those who had used it.
We re-upholstered the sofa so that imprinted on it, like a memory, are all the imagined stories of its life so far. The surface of the sofa is essential to the telling of the stories. To read the stories the sofa has to be explored and interacted with, lifting cushions to reveal tales and listening to sounds coming from deep within, which unravel the intimate and personal secrets of its past."
I love this idea! They made a piece of trash into a really chic' sofa!

raw-nerve