Lohmann investigates the contradictions in our relationship to animals using offal, off-cuts of leather, and other meat-industry waste products. The Waltraud Cow-Bench is an appropriately cow-shaped upholstered leather bench, a “bovine memento mori,” the designer has said. As lyrical and polemical as her work is, it is always intended to be useful: Waltraud is as comfortable as one dreams a reclining cow would be.
Gallery label from Rough Cut: Design Takes a Sharp Edge, November 26, 2008–October 12, 2009
A headless cow? A bench to sit on? Actually, it’s both! Lohmann makes her cow-benches using offcuts of leather, a waste product of the meat industry. She hopes they will help people think about how we use and treat animals. The benches are meant to be thought-provoking, funny, and useful. She names them all; this one is named after her mother!
Kids label from 2022
