“Majnoon” in Farsi means crazy, rebellious and lost wisdom.
This project was presented for a theater that (indirectly) dealt with the protests of 2008 in Iran. The total of social and anti-government protests in that year is known as “Green Movement”. Wherever people live under oppression and tyranny in the world, artists remain like social activists who crystallize the conditions of the times in their works, and designers are no exception to this rule. In a situation where the ruling oppression creates a suffocating atmosphere, artists and designers have no choice but to use the language of metaphors and illusions to reflect the spirit of their time.
In this object, all the efforts of the designer have been in providing a correct answer to the main concern of design, i.e. “function”, but the existential necessity of this chair is not only a means of sitting, but a matter for “expression” and “meaningfulness”.
In the design of this chair, concepts such as suffering, pain, captivity and torture have been narrated. This chair is a symbol of contemporary Iranian man who lives in conditions of oppression and tyranny, suffers and protests, but is tortured and finds himself in endless captivity. Majnoon is a story of years of pain and suffering of Iranian youth who have lost their freedom throughout their lives and are subjected to mental and physical tortures in different ways every day.
A crumpled form was designed for Majnoon to convey anxiety and trauma.
Majnoon is made of two materials. An interwoven and continuous tube that forms the main volume and the other are leather covers that are closed around the tubes. The design of these leather covers is such that they can be closed around the body of the chair by means of specific metal buttons and are reminiscent of the handcuffs and restraints of political prisoners and mental patients due to torture in Iranian prisons. The designer’s approach in presenting this object is completely meaningful(semantic) and the form is so placed in the service of meaning (the main function of the work) that the appearance of the object is far from a means for sitting.
The main body of Majnoon is made of steel pipe and is made by hand, and the final coating is electrostatic paint. The leather covers used in the chair make it possible to sit on it and can be opened and closed. Leather pieces are also sewn and made by hand.
The main challenge in this chair has been creating harmony between form and content. On the one hand, it must create the possibility of “sitting” as a chair and provide minimum ergonomics, and on the other hand, it must convey the intended meaning.
