ANOTHER KINGDOM: DICHOTOMY || A Chess Set Blending Sculpture, Symbolism, and Surreal Design
At PAD Paris, Taras Yoom unveiled more than a game—it’s an ethical artifact born from a world torn in two.
The line between art object and game dissolves entirely in Another Kingdom: Dichotomy, the latest collectible chess set by Bangkok-based artist Taras Yoom. Presented at PAD Paris, the work is not only a feat of sculptural finesse, but a philosophical exercise: one that positions chess as a theatre for absolute conflict. Here, black and white are not just player colours—they’re existential positions.
Tall and commanding, the black queen rises like a totem of judgment in a realm without compromise.
Comprising just 21 handcrafted sets, the series immerses collectors in the surreal world of Yoomoota, Yoom’s biomorphic art universe. The artist’s interpretation of chess is anything but conventional. Each sculpted figure—produced using a blend of 3D printing, molding, manual processing, and acrylic painting—appears like a creature from another realm. Black and white tones dominate the palette, their starkness further emphasized by the story behind the collection: the wandering Star of Dichotomy has eclipsed the land, draining all colour and plunging the universe into a realm of absolutes—light and dark, certainty and chaos, good and evil.
White pieces prepare for symbolic confrontation—each one a handcrafted ambassador of light.
“Here, the game is not merely a matter of strategy but a complex ethical conflict. There is no room for hesitation or shades of gray—only pure opposition. Chess invites players to confront the ethical dilemmas inherent in their choices. Every move, every decision, every turn is now dictated by an immutable law: light or darkness—nothing in between”
A surreal white knight figure stands poised on the checkered battlefield, blending animal form with sculptural flair.
While Yoom’s previous chess set Another Kingdom: Light Stage—now housed at the Red Dot Design Museum—symbolized harmony and coexistence, Dichotomy presents the viewer with a world stripped of middle ground. There is no equilibrium here. The artist likens the game to a moral confrontation: “Every move, every decision, every turn is now dictated by an immutable law—light or darkness, nothing in between.”
The craftsmanship itself echoes this stark conceptualism. The materials—a blend of acrylics, metals, silicone, and photopolymer plastics—lend each figure a dual quality of rigidity and fluidity, like animate sculptures frozen in a single moment of tension. And yet, a flicker of technological modernity grounds the set in the present: each piece is embedded with an NFC chip, offering collectors digital certification and provenance.
Rendered in full detail, the entire set becomes a sculptural tableau where surrealism meets strategy.
This isn’t a chessboard designed for idle play—it’s a philosophical artifact, an aesthetic provocation, and a sculptural collector’s piece that straddles the boundaries of function and form. As with all works within the Yoomoota universe, the piece offers more than its surface implies. It asks: what happens when colour, compromise, and ambiguity disappear?
For collectors of rare design objects, Another Kingdom: Dichotomy presents a narrative to be contemplated, a sculpture to be studied, and perhaps, a decision to be made.
With otherworldly forms and biomorphic limbs, the pawns offer a playful yet profound reinterpretation of hierarchy.
