"If a monkey is amongst dogs, why won’t it start barking?"
At first, we painted the chair yellow because the parable seemed quite fun and childlike, then to compliment the yellow we added the remaining primary colours- blue and red. In our view the primary colours represent different dog breeds and with the inclusion of the pink leg, we managed to represent a monkey camouflaged amongst them. Furthermore, since yellow is also the colour of bananas; a monkey’s food and primary source of energy- shows that although it is on its own it is conquering the dogs because it has an infinite source of energy.
— Christos and Lyarianne 'Monkey Throne'

"A single man cannot build a house."
Instead of absorbing the parable, I let the parable absorb me. I built the chair whilst playing the character of a man who tried to build something on his own. This is discernible through the way the chair has been reconstructed and decorated; the upside-down backrest, incomplete painting, strange placements and a big tear that reveals a single handprint, proof that one man was the one behind the piece. No matter how much he tries to hide the fact that he did it alone and without any help, it will show through because of the final quality of the piece; one cannot achieve greatness purely on their own, one needs someone to rely on at one point or another.
— Evangelos

"Love never gets lost it’s only kept."
I chose this specific parable amongst others since it is the one that I relate to the most, more specifically the world love. While thinking about what kind of person would sit on the chair, I imagined them to be raw and connected to his emotions, so I left some parts of the chair bare and unpainted to compliment them. Love in my opinion is a cycle that has many stages, so I decided to represent that in the slats of my chair. The order is from tallest to shortest slat and represents the following stages: first, it is well rounded, and love is reciprocated between two lovers, then it is even to show the equal respect that couples should have for one another. Inevitably there comes the stage where couples will go through ups and downs followed by the big fallout; but that depends entirely on how the audience views it. It may be a chance to climb back up and go through the same cycle if the lover was important.
— Jessica

"Rain does not make friends with anybody, it falls on any person it meets outside."
I read this parable in a very positive light because in my opinion, it tells me that the rain is accepting of anyone and anything; it does not pick and choose and it does not discriminate, it embraces everyone. I also associate water with being the element that gives everything life and to show that I decided to imitate the growth of life by applying flowers and lovely blooms into my piece.
— Magda

"No matter how dark it is, the hand always knows the way to the mouth."
In my perspective, this parable meant that no matter how difficult something is to do or to overcome, as long as one has the patience to do so and puts hard work into achieving something then the unachievable can be achieved. In order to transcribe this interpretation into my artwork I used my African heritage to carve out Kwatakye Atiko, an Adinkra symbol that also serves as a language. This symbol in particular translates to hairstyle of Kwatakye, a war hero which is very relevant to my interpretation since if one was to overcome problems, they need to simulate the mind of a war hero, brave, unafraid and dedicated to achieve his goals.
— Moiz

"In the moment of crisis, the wise build bridges and the foolish build dams."
When I first joined the workshop, I discovered that there was a bridge between us participants; we were of all ages, ethnicities and walks of life- but in the end I believe that the bridge between all of us was crossed. Bridges apply to every walk and stage in life and in my opinion, there is always something that someone must cross over and there are also bridges in the physical world that connects us. For the chair to resemble a bridge I decided to cut it diagonally and used red as my main colour because red to me is the colour of life, like the warm sun, and I added green to compliment that.
— Pavlos

"Rain does not make friends with anybody, it falls on any person it meets outside."
The word we decided to concentrate on in this parable is ‘rain’. What we wanted to depict with our piece is that in life we can either avoid the rain or choose to get wet and enjoy it rather than looking at it as something bothersome- it’s all a matter of perspective.
—Savvas and Smaragda ‘Let Me Sit Under Your Rain’

"Milk and honey have different colours but they share the same house peacefully."
When I first walked into the workshop this specific chair caught my eye as it resembled one that I had at my paternal household. This in turn, reminded me of my family and this is where the parable came into play. My family remind me of milk and honey, we are all very different from each other and at first it seemed as if we would never get along with each other but just like milk and honey we managed to put aside our differences and live in one house peacefully. Through my chair I want to tell people that we need to live in peace with each other and with the world in general despite our differences, like I did with my family.
— Niki