This was my first sketch and idea that I had. I was going to play with how Tayanc presented two characters of himself that almost mirrored each other. Using this idea, I wanted to get twin flowers and tie them together or put a flower with a mirror. Likewise, I wanted to illustrate New York/Parsons and how he feels boxed in, which is why I wanted to use cement blocks surrounding the plant at first.
After going to Home Depot and seeing all the different materials I could use, I chose a square vase along with a small little cactus with pink flowers to go along with my initial idea with the cement like structure surrounding the plant. Reflecting on Tayanc’s sound project and how he says he was having trouble adapting to his new surrounding, I thought the best way to execute that idea would be using a cactus as his avatar. At first, it was a plain plant like this then I had left over wire from my other class, which I used to wrap it around the cactus.
I then went to Michaels and bought fake black flowers to represent his intimidation of other more “fashionable” students at Parsons. Initially, I was going to plant the flowers into the vase, but I changed it to it standing up and hovering over the cactus and wrapped more wire in between them.
My last sketch turned out look this and once I made the structure at the top, I further pushed the trapped/suffocating idea and made a bird cage at the top.
Reflection
This process overall was really interesting to learn about the OSS gardens in the Bronx and then translating it into our own installation along with our first sound projects. I’ve never made an installation out of a plant before and it was really beneficial to me to learn more about materials that I could play around with the plant and how I could use it in a way that could best represent my partner. I usually am not completely comfortable with having an idea first and going with it because sometimes I like to just go with the flow without having an idea first. This project helped me learn and understand that it’s important to have a solid idea first and then go along with what I feel comfortable with in the end.
