Inhabited Space: Body Extensions

Final Form:

Maquette:

Platonic Solids:

Questionnaire:

What is the cultural influence to your work? Tell us about its meaning/context and how it informed your piece. What does it mean to you?  How did you adapt, change, improve the reference by employing A, B, or C?

This sculpture, which is made of chipboard and metal, employs option A, “As a way to present oneself: your temptations, desires, fears, frustrations, experiences, memories, fantasies, anxieties, sensations.” It is a representation of my tenuous relationship with religion and faith, so hence, it is heavily influenced by my Indian heritage and Hindu culture. The geometric flowers on the head-rest are a representation of the lotus Goddess Saraswati sits on. She is considered as the goddess of light, knowledge and truth – i.e. experience of the highest reality. Since the flowers in my piece are clustered only on a part of my head it conveys the irony behind the concept of how with growing knowledge, my skepticism of religion and the way it is practise, increases proportionally. The deconstructed lotuses seem to shroud the eye and hinder the wearer’s vision in order to symbolise how at times faith can be blinding to my sense of logic.

How did you incorporate Platonic Solid (structural, symbolic meaning)?

I have incorporated the nets of tetrahedrons in different scales to layers them and build lotuses. These lotuses have symbolic meaning as stated above.

How did you incorporate texture?

I have employed mainly two different materials to build my sculpture – chipboard and metal (for the lotus) and have joined them using stitching with thread, and laid them on a wire base. To make the lotuses more dynamic and the inner petals visible from a distance, I carved out triangular slots in the chipboard petals. Since the metal sheet was too thick to cut out the slots, I carved out outlines in them instead, thus giving the piece variety.

Assess how well you executed the project.  What is the strongest aspect of the piece (formal or conceptual)? Where could you have improved?

The project was executed relatively well. I did several trials with the construction of the piece and really struggled with attaching the lotuses to the wire base. The strongest aspect of the piece is the concept behind it and how it meaningfully interacts with the body. The way the platonic solid has been employed is also one of the stronger aspects of the piece, however, I could have improved the layout and attaching of the lotuses to the base to make it more sturdy.