Dan Ortiz Leizman turns plastic chairs into string instrumentsThe plastic monobloc chair has become so embedded in everyday life that it often escapes notice altogether. For artist and educator Dan Ortiz Leizman, that familiarity became impossible to ignore. Ortiz Leizman was researching postwar aesthetics and American nuclear politics when three ordinary white chairs in the studio began to take on another meaning. During a creative block, Ortiz Leizman dismantled an old ukulele for parts and began attaching its strings to a monobloc chair. Ortiz Leizman tunes a MONOBLOC HARP before a performance | image courtesy of Elile Kebedesound carries memory beyond wordsFor Dan Ortiz Leizman, play and grief are closely related forms of improvisation.