There’s something about satire that tickles the senses. It criticizes and challenges; it entertains and educates. How solemn a life it would be without The New Yorker‘s Shouts & Murmurs!
It is through a satirical lens, then, that you should consider the following creation: a floating sofa that could gently carry away the coastal elite when sea levels rise. Designed by ad agency Mother, and titled Bliss, the artwork doubles as a perfectly functional floating piece of furniture that bears the bright orange color of a life vest and comes with a paddle, rocket flare, and emergency strobe. The accompanying ottoman, also in orange, zips open to include a martini mixology kit (olives included), sunscreen, and the obligatory user manual.
The object, which is on show at a gallery called Tuleste Factory in Manhattan, comes with a dizzying—dare I say, ridiculous—price tag of $100,000, making it among the most expensive sofas ever made. But anything more decently priced would defeat the purpose: to highlight the sad reality that climate change doesn’t affect everyone equally.
This isn’t the agency’s first unwonted interpretation of a serious topic. In the fall of 2022, Mother and artist Stuart Semple released a paint collection made from blood donated by gay men. The aim was to raise awareness about, and protest against, a controversial FDA rule that was forged at the height of the AIDS crisis and continues to ban men who have sex with men from donating blood.
Now, Mother is taking on climate change, a crisis of such gargantuan proportions that any intervention, however meaningful, can seem like a drop in the (rising) ocean. “We’re not under the illusion that one creative expression can change this debate all that much, but we can bring to life this idea that if you’re well-off, you probably will be fine no matter what,” says Paul Malmstrom, the cofounder of Mother’s New York branch. “It’s the people who aren’t well-off who suffer the most.”
And bring to life, they did. The frame of the sofa is made from the 200-year-old pine of a sleeper beam that the team sourced from its very own office building in Brooklyn. The soft seating modules were filled with marine grade foam and upholstered locally with water-resistant Sunbrella fabric, then attached to the frame via metal hooks. The paddle is slotted inside the backrest, while each tubular armrest on either end of the sofa hides a rocket flare and a strobe light. There’s even a sea-level indicator that was screen-printed on the fabric, and an SOS sign on the reverse side of the seat cushions.
For now, Mother is selling Bliss as a one-off art piece. Malmstrom himself recognizes the irony that the buyer may be an art collector who won’t so much as sit on it, let alone use it as a fancy pool float. But about 20% of the profits will go to UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, making this a “3D ad for our partner,” he says.
The agency has no immediate plans to commercialize the sofa, but they’re not excluding the possibility of a floating furniture set that is a bit less hand-crafted and a bit cheaper, but still sold as a “donation mechanism” where a portion of the sales would go to UNHCR. Considering the $44 billion boating industry has already birthed such preposterous inventions as an inflatable Adirondack chair, they likely won’t need to look too far to find a buyer.
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