Pippa Dickson
BA BFA Hons

Pippa Dickson graduated with Honors from the School of Art in Hobart in 2001. She worked at Arts Tasmania for six months, and has now started a Masters in furniture design in Hobart. Pippa is currently obsessed with air-craft design and seating for public and domestic settings.
Her designs primarily reflect concerns to do with accessibility and inclusion for all people in public and domestic settings. The power to be “transported from a situation or condition, to have the freedom of movement (and to move), to be entertained and distracted from the monotony of everyday life, to have independence and equality, be connected and not isolated are all central ideas.”

As a result, Pippa’s work has been inspired aesthetically by objects that are symbolic of the above ideas, and thus aero planes and design elements from them were an almost unconscious though obvious choice.

While designing pieces that are easy to use and accessible for both public and domestic settings, Pippa’s aim is to challenge the aesthetics commonly associated with institutions and public spaces such as hospital waiting areas, schools and airports. “Furniture in these places often gives us little to contemplate except the reality of mass-production, and leaves the impression that the physicalility is the principle consideration, and the user is secondary and thus de-valued.”

She would describe her work as more form based than material based, meaning that the shape comes first. Pippa is also interested in the texture of fabrics “…synthetic or natural...it's got to feel good!”

workshopped 002

a) ‘Mother Fokker’ H450 W1400 D450mm, aluminium, stainless steel, MDF, Enduro foam, ‘Slick’ fabric.

b) ‘Sister Fokkers’, H350 W1250 D350mm, stainless steel, MDF, Enduro foam, ‘Slick’ fabric.

(both inspired by the propellers on the early Dutch Fokker bi-planes).