Study Desk for a Future Fundamentalist

Study Desk for a Future Fundamentalist is a desk based on a piece of furniture in Giovanni Bellini’s painting St. Francis in Ecstacy from around 1476-78. The painting depicts Francis of Assisi out in the desert receiving the stigmata (Christ’s wounds from the crucifixion). Francis of Assisi (1182-1226) was a radical Italian religious order founder and is one of the most venerated saints in the Roman Catholic Church.

The desk is reproduced in the same shape and size as in the painting by Bellini, but given an off-white surface treatment typical of standardized, mass-produced furniture. The table top is freely decorated with vinyl stickers, which apparently appear as regular elements of mainstream skate culture. However, the stickers are fabricated and on closer inspection reveal underlying radical messages, symbolism and references to phrases and injunctions from a fictitious religion.

The design put an emphasis on radicalization and extremism in the West through a furniture representation of the boys' bedroom and adolescent youth culture. Study Desk for a Future Fundamentalist is an attempt to contextualize contemporary fundamentalism through furniture design.