This idea for an art project is to give a design brief requiring an art student to design and produce a cardboard chair which serves as a functional piece of design. This means that she has to make a cardboard chair that is strong enough to bear the weight of a person without it collapsing. Such an art project would demonstrate her ability and interest in the field of three-dimensional design.
Making a sculpture of a cardboard chair can be an individual art project or a group project. The student may interpret the design brief freely to explore all the creative possibilities the subject offers. For instance, he may decide to present the cardboard chair in a literal way, take a very experimental approach or make a bold visual statement about the waste of consumerism by making the cardboard chair out of cardboard food packaging.
As a traditional art project, a student can choose to paint a picture, make a collage or to create a mixed media composition, with the cardboard chair being the subject. She may interpret the theme of the cardboard chair in any way but she must present her composition in a particular historical art style, such as classical, impressionist, cubism, futurism or pop art. For example, she can pay tribute to Van Gogh's rendering of the "The Yellow Chair" and paint her own version of it but replacing the yellow chair with a cardboard chair. Or she can explore the cardboard chair as how Picasso would have approached the subject.
An art student interested in theatrical design can choose to do a set, prop or costume design project based on one of the following play texts: "Accidental Death of an Anarchist" by Dario Fo, "The Dolls House" by Henrik Ibsen or "The Chairs" by Eugene Ionesco. The farcical or symbolic nature of the plays will give scope to a designer to explore the use of cardboard chairs as a design theme. He can create a small scale cardboard stage model for a set design project, make a wacky cardboard chair prop or design symbolic cardboard chair themed costumes.