Sit and Think – Weather Changes 

A 2-Day Creative Design Workshop for Ages 10–17

Get ready to brainstorm! Turn your ideas into chairs. Explore tides, moons, storms, eclipses, extreme weather, and animal adaptations, and watch your creativity pour into reality.

Workshop Details:

  • When: 2 days, 10 AM–2 PM JULY

  • Where: Old Ambulance Station Gallery, Nambour

  • Cost: $200

  • Tools: Drills, hammers, glue (teacher handles cutting for safety)

Your Creative Forecast :

  1. Sketch your ideas—let them rain

  2. Prototype your chair—storm through challenges

  3. Experiment & Reflect—don’t let ideas drizzle away

  4. Improve & Scale—make it shine like a rainbow

  5. Paint & Construct—bring your sun-sational vision to life

  6. Resolve & Present—lightning strike your final design in the gallery

Why Join:

  • Hands-on design & making skills

  • Creative problem-solving

  • Sustainability awareness

  • Turn your ideas into a gust of genius!

Spots are limited—don’t let this opportunity blow away!

Activity: Sky Frames & Weather Light

Purpose:
Help students observe light, colour, atmosphere, and weather changes, then translate those sensations into design ideas.

Time: 20–30 minutes

1. Sky Framing (Turrell-inspired) – 10 minutes

Give each student a cardboard frame (a rectangle cut from recycled cardboard).

Ask them to:

  • Hold the frame up to the sky, trees, clouds, or light.

  • Move it slowly and notice colour, brightness, shadows, and movement.

Prompt questions:

  • What colours do you see in the sky?

  • How does the light change when clouds move?

  • Does the sky feel calm, heavy, bright, or stormy?

Students then quickly sketch what they see inside the frame.

Concept: Like Turrell’s Skyspaces, the frame turns the sky into an artwork you look at carefully.

2. Weather Light Experiment (Eliasson-inspired) – 10 minutes

Create small light experiments using simple materials:

Materials:

  • torches or phone lights

  • coloured cellophane or plastic

  • water in jars

  • reflective foil or mirrors

Students experiment with:

  • shining light through coloured plastic

  • reflecting light off foil

  • shining light through water to create ripples

Ask them:

  • What kind of weather feeling does this light create?

  • Does it feel like sunrise, storm, lightning, eclipse, or moonlight?

Students sketch abstract shapes or patterns inspired by the light.

3. Translate Into Chair Ideas – 10 minutes

Students choose one idea from their sketches and ask:

“If this light or sky feeling became a chair, what shape would it be?”

Examples:

  • Soft cloud light → rounded fluffy chair

  • Lightning flash → sharp angular chair

  • Eclipse shadow → circular canopy chair

  • Rippling water light → wave-shaped seat

Artists/designers we will learn about:

Gaetano Pesce

  • Known for bold, experimental furniture that looks almost alive or melting.

  • Chairs often have irregular shapes, drips, and organic forms.

  • His work can feel like lava flows, waves, or storms frozen in time.
    Workshop inspiration:
    Students could design chairs that look like a wave crashing, wind twisting, or melting ice.

Campana Brothers

  • Famous for making furniture from unexpected and recycled materials.

  • Chairs made from rope, cardboard, toys, scrap wood, and fabric.

  • The results feel chaotic and playful, almost like a storm of materials.
    Workshop inspiration:
    Encourage students to think of their chair as a “weather system made of objects.”

Nacho Carbonell

  • Creates wild, sculptural furniture that looks like creatures, nests, or weather forms.

  • Pieces often feel dreamlike and imaginative, almost like something from a storybook.
    Workshop inspiration:
    Chairs inspired by animal shelters, wind nests, or storm clouds.

Tejo Remy

  • Known for furniture made from bundles of recycled materials.

  • Famous example: a chest of drawers strapped together with a belt.

  • Emphasizes reuse, improvisation, and experimentation.
    Workshop inspiration:
    Students could build chairs from bundled or layered recycled materials, like layers of clouds or tidal debris.

Joris Laarman

  • Explores organic shapes inspired by natural systems.

  • His furniture sometimes resembles bones, branches, or flowing currents.
    Workshop inspiration:
    Chairs shaped like wind currents, lightning branches, or tidal patterns.

“If a storm, tide, eclipse, or drought was a chair, what would it look like?”

They could explore ideas like:

  • a spiralling cyclone chair

  • a tidal wave rocking chair

  • a drought chair with cracked surfaces

  • a rain chair that drips or hangs

  • an animal shelter chair for storms


Create 6 “weather inspiration cards” students randomly draw from:

  • Cyclone / wind

  • Tide / moon

  • Drought / dry season

  • Storm / lightning

  • Eclipse / shadow

  • Animal adaptation