Final Assignment

My idea of final assignment comes from the physicality and my own preferences in plastic bags. During my time in the US for a few months, I went grocery shopping every week to get my necessity. Every time I got back to my dorm, I was shocked by the numbers of plastic bags I collected in my drawer. I have folded all the plastic bags, some used as rubbish bags, still I had my drawer full of plastic bags when I checked out. I was depressed to see so many bags being threw away and destroyed the environment once they got to the landfills.

Based on this experience, I would like to do my work using plastic bags. I would like to experiment the possibilities and texture of plastic bags. I tried to fuse the plain white plastic bags and make a patch work out of them.



I fused the plastic bags together, it is so environmental unfriendly, but it turned out to be interesting as the texture of the plastic bags changed. It hardened and became a sheet of hard plastic. I discovered how heat worked well with thin plastic bags.




After doing the patch work, it seems that I can go beyond the screen and make something meaningful, such as to fuse plastic bags with logos. I have collected these plastic bags from friends and me, these are things we bought recently. I found that we were not going shopping for clothes or non-necessities, rather, we bought food, books for the graduation thesis.

I fused the plastic bags using an iron, turned it to medium level for wood.



These are works done by others.

Sliding Puzzle

The sliding puzzle was made for the course Graduation Thesis. It is made of wood and and framed by alumninum, so alumnium can help to fix the position once the wood becomes thinner and thinner after some time.

On top of the sliding puzzle, photos of shops which locate on my research area are sticked. The idea of making it is to show our interaction in the city space while it is fixed by the frame. We are helpless in changing the roads, roads are designed by the government. However, there is always some time that we are creating our own way in a city space.

How much is a feet now?

These days, news and reports are always talking about the high land price. It is nearly impossible to have your own apartment in Hong Kong recently. Small and medium scale apartments are so expensive that it will take the whole life paying the apartment in the expense of our quality of life.

The property agencies are making money from these poor work force, who works day after day, only longing for a brand new life when they start to work and develop a family.

Wooden Box

This is the work I made in class. The wooden box is painted in dark brown and it becomes my tool box when making other wood work.

physicality

Plastic bags came up into my mind with the greatest physicality. They can be folded, fused, it's so elastic that you can put few litres of soda into it and still it stays even the handles are tightened. Here are some ideas of how artists make use of plastic bags and create new works out of its boundaries.

Plastic bags, some transparent, some colored, with or without logos. They all speak for themselves. They are so flexible that they are stacked up or hooked especially with hawkers.

Drink not Drive

It is a classwork working on mixed media. Several ideas of installation are implement in the work:
- Dislocation (bringing the site into classroom)
- Addition (ready made materials, e.g. paper head from Frank, helmet, wine glass and tape)
- Simulation / Appropriation (simulate the situation of a car accident)

What's more:
Paparazzi and the impacts to the victims - Imagine you are dead and the first action of people is take out a camera instead of helping you. What would you feel about it?

Con't - Disappearing City - Plastic stand

To continue with my idea of the disappearing city and building, I have made a book/magazine stand. The two sides of the stand are shaped with buildings. Plastic books in different scales are also made in the MEEM workshop:


Magazines are put into one of the plastic books and made into a series. (Down)







With the two plastic books act as part of the installation.

Ceramic pottery

I made two ceramics in the worksho, however, one disappeared after baking. Ceramic is kind of challenge to me. Water and texture are highly related and and ways of binding them are also difficult in some sense. When it is too watery, it will too hard to shape and leave fingerprint or pattern on the ceramic. Also, the ceramic will need longer time to dry it up.

I loved using the Potter's Wheel, it helps to shape a cup and or cylindical objects. I would like to continue working with it when I have time.

Mid term presentation - Disappearing City

I have continued working on pop-up paper art. I would like to discover how a piece of paper can do to present things in real life. The work is based on panorama taken on a portion of Queen's Road East, near the famous Wanchai market and the Blue House. Wanchai undergoes a lot of redevelopment and urban renewal projects, still they are some traditional buildings left behind with different tastes of life. Paper represent kind of fragile, similar to the situation now in Wanchai. Those buildings are more vivid and more energetic as people are involved in it which is shown by the distribution of air conditioners.



Air conditioners are left non-cut. They can be viewed directly and through shadow.

Plastilina

It's a material found in art supply shop which the flexibility in shapping and and sticking is quite nice.

Zines 101 Workshop

I joined a workshop on zines making, i.e. small handmade booklets, they are usually printed in small quantities. It's like a collaboration of drawing and writing and zines can be circulated around with friends or even for sale.

As it was 人日, the theme of making zines was around it. We were taught how to do carving and block printing using rubber sheet (雕刻膠) and thick plastic sheet (膠板).

雕刻膠
膠板 "20" represents the date.

the final zine

my favourite print made by other participant

Earth Art

This was taken on the walking path. There was no entrance for bear. In daily life, we are bound by a lot of rules and restrictions they usually guide our way. It is impossible for wildlife animals to notice these signs. We are making change of the human world, but seem no way to change the cognition of wildlife.

Pop Up art book - Alice in the Wonderland

Wanna share some interesting pop up books. I was attracted by the page with lots of playing cards across the other page.

Pop Up

I am interested in pop up paper art and would like to understand the mechanism of the pop up art. I was inspired by Elodole:


And Ingrid Siliakus: