ADAD N°2 CONCEPT STATEMENT
1. Art and design often explore relationships between humans and non-humans, the environment and ecology. How can contemporary art and design propose new possibilities for imagining the âhumanâ and the environment?
This work explores the ecology of the home; its inhabitants, and by extension, their positions in the household and their identities. This is revealed through not only the resources that speak of intimacy, or how the final creases bend, but also through direct experience. I observed revealing performances. Performances that highlights the difference between my father's spontaneous folds straight through the paper and my mother's aggressive paper twisting, and my brother's decision to evict me out of his room when I kept pestering him to fold more paper.
The significance of paper folding is in its act of permanence, a crease once made cannot be undone and is irreversible. This detail then becomes a metaphor for life whereby the decision on how, where, and how hard to fold are symbolic of our actions and accordingly, the creases we make become our consequences. Fittingly, Robert J. Lang asserts, "... in a crease pattern, you can see everything that is hidden in the folded work.â
As mentioned, the material for folding has been deliberately selected to further this theme of the personal; envelopes that once carried the electricity bills addressed to both heads of the household, the leftover square-patterned paper from a university student's assignment, a pre-pubescent boy's unsigned permission slips, and a geography assignment along with old word searches, that parents had printed out, done by siblings on a boring day when the wifi was down.
The identities and connections of this home ecology become apparent. However, as much as my family belongs to this environment, we simply don't just exist in this space. We are not entirely confined and bounded to a gray brick townhouse just a street away from a valley's lane. While this setting completely composed of us, we are not entirely defined by ecology because we are complex and multi-faceted; a point that I felt that needed to be addressed in the work.
In continuing my work from the first assessment, I chose to narrow my focus on the origami aspect to it whereby I was challenged by my tutor to resist the traditional art practice of paper folding which was apparent in my poster. While somewhat monotonous, I enjoyed spontaneously making creases without thinking too much. I was also able to pick up a certain style in the way I had made my foldsâcorner to corner and an inclination for creating curves. I would then understand this would already be my personal story and identity coming through into the work. Despite my fascination and research into artists who specialized in origami, their work deviating from the traditional practice, I still had initial trouble in understanding the connection between what I was exploring and the topic I had chosen. This was mainly because my focus on nature had carried over from the first assignment into this one. Although, this was made clearer to me after having a discussion with my tutor whereby my perspective of what ecology meant expanded. I took in a few pointers, however, the idea that intrigued me the most was having others participate as a reflection of ecology. The conversation between a friend and myself as we folded away. Ultimately, I decided to shift my focus to home. I did consider a university environment but thought that it would be too difficultâcarrying the papers to and from school, meeting up with everyone when they were available, or actually getting the origami forms back.
In the end, I couldn't apply those techniques that I had looked into to my final work because I wanted honesty, a good reflection of the identities within the household.
Baik, K. (2016). This Paper Magician Constructs Unbelievable Origami. [online] Creators. Available at: https://creators.vice.com/en_us/article/535axa/jun-mitani-is-a-paper-magician-constructing-unbelievable-origami-forms [Accessed 17 Sep. 2017].
Between the Folds. (2008). [video] Directed by V. Gould. USA: Green Fuse Films.
Langorigami.com. (2017). Crease Patterns | Robert J. Lang Origami. [online] Available at: http://www.langorigami.com/crease-patterns [Accessed 18 Sep. 2017].
Schlender, S. (2013). For One Man, Origami Unfolds a Better Life. [online] VOA. Available at: https://www.voanews.com/a/for-one-man-origami-unfolds-a-better-life/1579066.html [Accessed 17 Sep. 2017].
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