While humans—versatile creatures that we are—manage to make space for ourselves to sit wherever we go, benches, through virtue of their design, serve as the sole piece of furniture designed to make sharing space with others feel natural. Historically, benches have served as gathering points for communities of all ages, races, and walks of life. They are where we rest, sleep, converse, cry, people-watch, philosophise, and—according to many a spy and superhero movie—trade top-secret information.
With the increased privatisation of public spaces and the implementation of design targeting the unhoused, minorities, and the marginalised, benches are being recontextualised once more. Positioned simultaneously as a third space and a site of contention between civic leaders and the unhoused, benches reveal much about society: levels of accessibility, demographics, whose histories are preserved, and who is omitted from the narrative—intentionally or otherwise.
The Benches Speak examines the park bench as an artefact of humanity, serving as a tool to communicate the human condition. Through a brief history of its evolution from a seat of prestige amongst male magistrates in Ancient Greek agoras to a resting spot for the night, the park bench reveals itself as a timeline of our ever-fluctuating state of affairs, beliefs, and ambitions: an inherent device that should not be altered, nor replaced, lest the communities and histories it holds be lost with it.