In a world increasingly shaped by mass production and disposable design, graduating students from Camosun College’s Fine Furniture and Joinery program are pushing back with a collection of handcrafted chairs that emphasize intention in material and process.
The 10-month program culminates in Against the Grain: An Exhibition of Handcrafted Chairs, a public showcase featuring work from 16 graduating students. The exhibit opened with a gala event on Wednesday, June 24 at the Arts Centre at Cedar Hill in Cedar Hill Recreation Centre, where visitors can view the work, attend student presentations, and take part in awards.
Each student-designed chair reflects months of technical training in joinery, design development, and furniture construction. Program instructor Sandra Carr says the capstone project is designed to challenge students to combine precision craftsmanship with personal expression.
“It really is meant to bring together different aspects of what students have been learning from the basics of different types of materials and how they work and different joinery techniques, but very much so design, furniture history, the aesthetics of design,” says Carr. “So all of that really comes together at this time of year.”
This year’s pieces are built primarily from locally salvaged materials, including Garry oak, maple, and horse chestnut, supplied through the Vancouver Island Woodworkers’ Guild wood-recovery program. The guild supports the program by providing at a discounted rate reclaimed wood that would otherwise go to waste, allowing students to work with materials that carry both environmental and historical significance.
“The guild basically salvages urban trees that would normally get cut up for firewood or be burned. So, they have a volunteer program of taking local Garry oak and arbutus and maple and all the trees that we know and love, if they have to come down because they’re dangerous or they’ve been blown down in a windstorm, or, for whatever reason, diseased trees,” says Carr. “The guild is basically taking those trees, milling them into lumber, and they sell the material close to cost to members and to our school, and they also donate to local high schools.”
According to graduating student Larissa Piva, this year’s exhibition theme, “against the grain,” reflects more than just woodworking—it also speaks to broader cultural and technological pressures facing artisans today.
“It’s important to me, you know, to keep this tradition alive and to go back to handmade and things that are built with more care,” says Piva. “It’s really important for me and for, I think, everybody here, and that’s kind of why our theme is ‘against the grain,’ because we’re kind of like against that commodification of furniture and art, and like, no, let’s go back to when people cared about what they purchased and what they made.”
The exhibit includes a range of seating designs, each shaped by individual research into form, ergonomics, and historical or contemporary design influences. While chairs remain the central focus, the show also highlights the experimentation and evolution that takes place throughout the program.
“Chairs are just one of the most difficult objects to design and build because it has to interact with the human body,” says Carr. “So, there’s lots of functional requirements as well as all of the aesthetic requirements, so it really tests what students have learned and allows them to put together a project that brings together lots of different aspects that they’re interested in exploring more, or if they want to explore new things.”
Beyond technical skill, instructors emphasize that the program is also about developing a design language and learning how to translate ideas into functional, enduring objects.
“I’m just so stoked to see all the finished chairs in the gallery because this is the first time I’ve ever been part of an exhibition where you get to see the process of every single piece in the exhibition from designed start to produced, finished,” says Piva. “It’s just been an experience that I don’t think I’ll ever have again in my whole life. So I know it sounds kind of cheesy, but just seeing all of our projects together, holding space together, will be, I think, one of the greatest experiences I will ever have as an artist.”
The exhibition is hosted at the Arts Centre at Cedar Hill, located at 3220 Cedar Hill Road, where it will remain on display, free to the public, until Sunday, July 19.