The Divination Bowl
Clear glass bowl, 400x400 mm
1000 Laser-cut acrylic charms, 40x55 mm each
-Exhibited as part of Baggage Claim at Staffordshire St. in 2023
'The Divination Bowl' consists of 1000 horse-shaped charms, each inscribed with unique phrases that are actually racehorse names. The bowl acts as an oracle that the audience is encouraged to interact, and offers each visitor an uplifting message specifically meant for them. The phrases can serve as good wishes, mantras, manifestations, and affirmations. If the audience kindly chooses to hold onto their souvenirs after the exhibition, they are meant to act as self-healing tools to clean energy, provide courage, and bring good vibes in times of self- doubt, anxiety, uncertainty, and hopelessness.
Racehorse names were all hand-picked by meticulously going through the database on https://www.racingpost.com
Boredom Is Not a Luxury
Curated by Seray Ozdemir
31st August-4th September 2021 @ Craft Central London
Working to optimize for and invest in the future has become our mode of being, yet the constant precarity and insecurity we are being subjected to by market forces mean that we can’t even begin to see what’s two steps ahead of us. Digital diversions ensure that we are never present in the present either. We are so used to being simultaneously stimulated by various types of media to the point where not multitasking feels unnatural. To most, the idea of actually doing nothing sounds foreign if not completely implausible or even anxiety-inducing, as maybe we started finding comfort in exhausting our receptors too much to leave space for self-reflection.
Audre Lorde teaches us* that if the revelation and distillation of experience and feelings have become a luxury, then we have given up our power and we have given up the future of our worlds. If today, our perpetual state of severe ennui and mental fatigue makes achieving self-awareness a luxury; then we propose embracing boredom as a resistance technique. Inviting boredom into our lives collectively would mean rejecting the neoliberal achievement-obsessed mentality and disengaging ourselves from the ethos of never-ending productivity. Borrowing from Lorde, we acknowledge boredom as a tool for tangible action and change; therefore, a route to freedom.
In this exhibition, boredom takes diverse forms including 3D avatars having an existential crisis, a Lady Gaga look-alike questioning neoliberalism, singing as a way to enter the virtual realm, a never-ending car journey into the night, daydreaming about human-slipper hybrids, self-strangulation with a plastic bag, a stroll along the Thames, doing laundry, baking banana bread, and more.
Let us affirm together: Boredom is not a luxury.
*Audre Lorde, Poetry Is Not a Luxury, 1977. Further Sources of Inspiration Include: A Philosophy of Boredom by Lars Svensen, The Plenitude of Distraction by Marina van Zuylen, and Work, Body, Leisure.
Organized by Anna Kolosova and Melissa Vipritskaya Topal
Participating Artists: Ana Blumenkron, Anna Kolosova, Apple Tart & K Anthony, Blake Hart-Wilson, Brigit Kovax, Charlotte Yao, Clare Haxby, Daniel Freaker, Dawn Parsonage, Ellen Ball, Fritz Polzer, Jakob Buraczewski, Joe Goldman, Kate McDonnell, Melissa Vipritskaya Topal, Nadia J. Armstrong, Patrick O’Donnell, Polam Chan, Romina Belda, Ruyi Ding, Simon Pike, Seray Ozdemir, Virginie Tan, Woo Jin Joo
Corridor Society
-
Exhibited at the Royal College of Art Graduate Show, at Global Grad Show as part of Dubai Design Week, and at designjunction as part of London Design Festival 2018
-
Published on Dezeen, Designboom, Architectural Digest, and FRAME Magazine
Corridor Society transforms London's neglected hallways into social infrastructure through four pieces of mediator furniture designed for shared accommodation. The project addresses the crisis where landlords convert living rooms into bedrooms, leaving flatmates isolated with no communal spaces, demonstrating how spatial design can rebuild social connection in co-living environments.
The traditional family structure's hegemony as the only way to live together is no longer invincible. Co-living has become exceedingly common among London's mega-city dwellers, yet the dedicated architectural identity of this concept is yet to be defined. Currently, flatsharers reappropriate spaces specifically designed for nuclear families.
Roughly half of London's shared flats no longer have living rooms, as landlords convert them into bedrooms. This transforms rooms into individual micro-houses, making shared flats into micro-neighborhoods where corridors function more like streets than transitional spaces. With no common spaces, tenants use beds as sofas, dining tables, and living rooms—a condition actively encouraging isolation.
This architectural mismatch of spaces designed for families but occupied by strangers creates dysfunction that intensifies social isolation and loneliness among residents.
I conducted ethnographic research across 10+ London shared flats, interviewing 15+ co-living tenants and developing cultural probes to understand corridor usage patterns. Through embedded observation, I identified existing behaviors: tenants leaning on walls, chatting through doorways, dragging stools for extended conversations that revealed latent social potential in these transitional spaces.
My experimental approach involved designing and prototyping interventions that activated both doorways and corridors. I created "stoop-like" doorway prototypes that made doors more porous and non-binary, encouraging tenants to keep them open and initiate contact. I then embedded myself directly in corridor environments, using the space for extended activities: working, eating meals, watching films with a projector, exercising to test how sustained occupation would influence flatmate interactions and space perception.
This immersive methodology allowed me to observe real-time social dynamics and prototype place-making strategies that transformed corridors from transitional zones into destinations, validating the social infrastructure potential of neglected domestic spaces.
Corridor Society reclaims corridors as social infrastructure. Drawing from urban design principles where sidewalks function as "urban living rooms" for chance encounters, the project transforms corridors from transitional spaces into destinations. Four pieces of mediator furniture—Multi-Level Lounger, Standing Sofa, 3/4 Table, and Spreading Hub—create a hybrid typology combining sidewalks, living rooms, and corridors.
Multi Level Lounger
1800x800x400 mm
Steel Tubes, Plywood, Upholstery, Spray Paint
With 'Multi Level Lounger'*, the emerging space between the seats on different levels is used as a coat rack. It gives tenants a different perception of their flat from an unusual vantage point while bringing back one of the fundamental functions of the corridor which is creating a transition from urban to domestic. The coat rack helps tenants to take their urban suits off and become their domestic selves.
*Named After Verner Panton’s Lounger
Standing Sofa
870x210x40, 500x500x40, 200x300x40 mm
Plywood, Upholstery
'Standing Sofa' is a group of cushions that use the walls as their habitat. They can be hung on the walls like picture frames and can easily be rearranged according to the situation. By encouraging already existing different postures for leaning on the walls, they aim to prolong conversations and make people linger.
3/4 Table
1100x940x760 mm
Plywood, Oak, Upholstery, Paint
'3/4 Table' is a table-bench with a missing quarter so it can surround and occupy the corner, creating a mutual dining and lounging unit. it minimizes lost space by becoming an extension of the architecture. as most kitchens in shared flats are too small to accommodate a dining table, it is rethought and resurrected to benefit from the bonding quality of eating together.
Spreading Hub
500x360x2220 mm
Steel tubes, Plywood, Paint
'Spreading Hub' is a hybrid of a floor light and stacking stools. The light aims to improve phenomenological qualities of the corridor to make it a desirable place for staying in. The stools can define either a vertical or a horizontal hub. When they are stacked together, they work as a standing table. When they are spread, they offer seats and tables to turn the corridor into a place of conviviality.
