Come a Little Bit Closer Bench by Nina Farkache
Nina Farkache
Come a Little Bit Closer, 2001
Stainless steel, glass marbles, painted MDF
This bench, featuring discs that slide on the marbles, is about gentle collision into relations and human contact. As the seats glide across the marbles, the sound of rolling glass adds an element of playfulness, creating an experience that unites you with your neighbour, even when you are not moving at all. One can adjust the distance between oneself and the other bench user by sliding over glass marbles.
Come a Little Bit Closer bench is in the collection of the Centraal Museum Utrecht.
Me, Myself & You explored the delicate, intimate, and often unpredictable ways design shapes our social world. Fences that invite neighbours to play and benches that determine how close we sit — each object examines the fine balance between connection and distance. With human relationships at its core, the project invited us to smile, hesitate, and perhaps take a seat where we normally wouldn’t.
More than an exploration of materials or form, it focused on behaviour, identity, and the subtle spaces between people in the 21st century. First presented in Milan in 2001 and later in Utrecht, the exhibition transformed everyday encounters into playful experiments in social design.
