Inhabited Spaces: Spaced Suite

We exist in certain habitats, in spaces that we feel comfortable in. To further explore this idea, we were asked to create our very own, personal spaced suite for our body to exist within.

The first task was to draw an aspect of the culture that we left behind in order to come to New York to pursue our dream. When I think about what I sacrificed to come to New York, the first thing that comes to my mind is my family and the sense of protection and feeling of home they provide me with. The second thing I think of is nature. Coming from a very green city with lots of nature, growing up right by a lake that is surrounded by huge trees, I tried to connect family and nature.  By drawing the view I have out of my bedroom window back in Germany, I portrayed the nature and the feeling of home and protection. Trees are a symbol of protection, we can seek shelter underneath them from either rain or sun. And they provide me with even more comfort, because they remind me of home. They surround the lake, almost like a fence, creating a habitat within them that seems to almost be locked out from its surroundings. While this is the positive sense of comfort I feel when I am home, it also represents the feeling of being locked in, of being limited to what is within and not being able to step out. Compared to New York, the city where I am from is almost a village, with no opportunities and no where to dream big. By going to New York I left that ‘cage’ to seek for more.

After finishing the Sharpie drawing on 30” x 40” x 0.04” chipboard, we found the middle points of the drawings by measuring the diagonals. We then cut our drawings into four equal stripes and, as a class, mixed all the quarters to represent the merging of all of our cultures and habitats. After choosing four random stripes, we cut them into 3/4″ stripes. Next, we each reassembled the stripes we cut by creating a woven fabric, using a hole-punch and brass fasteners to fix the weaving.

The fabrics were then taken apart again and we were separated into groups of two. In these groups, we had to take what we had done for the fabric and turn it into something three dimensional: a boulder with at least one concave and one convex side. Again, only brass fasteners and hole-punchers were allowed.

Finally, we started working on our final spaced suites, made out of 3/4″ stripes of 0.015 matt vinyl that we had to cut. These were fixed together using aluminium rivets. The task was to create a self-supporting, self-enveloping habitat for my body, representative of my culture and of what I left behind. Connecting back to my first drawing, I decided to choose the sea as my main theme, playing with the idea of a fishing net that could dress my body. With that idea in mind, I digitally sketched different net designs.

I started off doing sketch number 5, because I thought number 5 would be too complicated. However, when I finished 5 I decided to add the other stripes of sketch 6. The final project has a diameter of around 12 feet. I used 3 and a half sheets of 0.015 matt vinyl, cut into 3/4″ stripes, and 152 rivets.

Final Statement

This Spaced Suite is a self-supporting, self-enveloping habitat for my body, representative of my culture and of what I left behind in order to pursue my dream of coming to New York to study at Parsons. Growing up at the sea, the beautiful nature and the water are what I connect to my hometown and to my family. Because my family and I went fishing every weekend during summer months, a fishing net symbolizes home and comfort for me. The thought of inhabiting it makes me feel protected and cared for, something I gave up when leaving Germany and moving to New York City by myself. However, a net also represents the idea of being caught and locked in, of not having the opportunity to explore the world around you, of being limited to what is inside the net. I felt similarly while living in my small hometown, like I was missing out on a whole different world that was happening around me, in large, urban cities and different countries.

Challenges I faced during the process:

In many spots, I have more than 8 stripes of vinyl that are hold together by a single rivet. I started the project with 1/8″ rivets, but unfortunately they didn’t really stick the vinyl together and the rivets kept popping out. I had to take all of the 152 rivets out again and put new, thicker ones in, which was very time consuming. Even though the bigger ones held it together much better, they are still not ideal, as a couple of stripes still popped out, due to the flexibility of the material.