Space and Materiality : Wearable Sculpture Project

Protection in Ornamentation

For this project, we first started off with choosing 6 images, three of which depicted bodily armor and the other three depicted bodily ornamentation.

 

We later had to make 5 thumbnail sketches inspired by these images that are a wearable sculpture and is a combination od ornamentation and armor.

I combined parts from all the thumbnail sketches to make my cardboard wearable sculpture.

I wanted to connect my piece with my Indian culture. I decided to look at the aspect of women ornamentation used as protection. Women often feel unsafe going alone in India and this sculpture responds to that. Married women wear a ghunghat (veil) in the Hindu culture. I decided to make a headpiece that not only covers the head but something that is rigid and protects it. Women also wear bangles on their hands and apply Mehendi (henna designs). I decided to take this concept and add protection to it so that the hands can have ‘beautiful protection’ on them. I got inspired by the porcupine spikes and added it to the handpieces. I used motifs from the Indian design on my sculpture to add more context.

Below are the in-process pictures

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Pieces of the Hand

 

Headpiece

Shoulder:

Final Images