Interdisciplinary
Project Name: Walk Green
Project Client: Emily Carr University of Art and Design
Exploration: Interdisciplinary Studio
Year: 2016
Presentation Location: ECUAD Cafe
Material: Mix-media
Project Client: Emily Carr University of Art and Design
Exploration: Interdisciplinary Studio
Year: 2016
Presentation Location: ECUAD Cafe
Material: Mix-media
Artist Statement
|
The artist was proposing to create a piece of a functional object in order to encourage a healthy lifestyle. At the really beginning, she inspired when jogging in the community, the idea was about making an object to appreciate to the sneaker that accompanying a lot in her jogging period. After that, she considered the materials to use including plastic, wood or foam, eventually, she choose glass at the end.
Recalling to the Thanksgiving supper that she had in her cousin’s home, she realized that a set of Coke glass bottle might be a good cultural material to use in this project. After doing brainstorm and sketches, she decided to break down the bottles into pieces in school workshop, then create a pair of life-size (size 6) sneaker. During her whole working process, she mostly used the glue gun to glue glass together piece by piece. However, one of the biggest challenges she got was majority glass is not flat enough to make the shoe sole or the curve glass is not curved enough to match the shoe’s curve. In order to figure out this question, she classify the glass (with logo/without logo, flat/curve) and choose more carefully, also, she used her own sneaker as a model/ template, to glue the shoe’s curve first. After then, she glued the whole piece to the shoe sole. It is worth noting that she tried to glue the glass with Coke logo in the external rather than sole, in order to emphasize the material and theme. Afterward, she tried to figure out the materials of the shoelaces, due to the real shoelaces not suitable in the glass shoes. Eventually, she used thin hemp rope, as it looks more natural and fixes the themes better. The piece express a theme that unhealthy drink culture should be replaced by sports culture or organic life. As modern people used to sit and work on computer for long times, as well as most people drink soda a lot. For this reason, the artist designed breaking the Coke glass then created sneakers in order to encourage people take an outside walk and enjoy the green lifestyle. According to the themes, the artist installed her piece on the ground near the Soda vending machine in school’s cafeteria, so that the viewers would notice it when they using the vending machine. In addition, she considered to use wood boards to make a step to reach the vending machine and to place one shoe on the step like people walking on the step. The artist was trying to use her piece to encourage people that give up soda when they are going to use the vending machine and to take healthy life instead. |