For the NGV Rigg Design Prize, Hecker Guthrie transcends the idea of the table as merely objectified furniture, stripping the structure back to its most basic and recognisable form, where materiality and aesthetic become secondary. A domestic landscape constructed entirely out of the 'table' emerges. The table as surface, the table as support, the table as enclosure. The installation argues, quietly, that the story of the table is, in the end, a deeply human story.

Photography by Shannon McGrath