re·fuse

Our Art 322 final project. We repurposed plastic grocery bags for a typographic installation. We also tripped on stuff a lot.

The original idea was to take used plastic bags and create hollow, airtight letterforms out of them and float them up to the ceiling of the University at Buffalo's Center for the Arts. There were, however, three problems with this. First and foremost was the fact that the fifty-three double ply bags we initially ironed together were two heavy to float, and weren't airtight anyway. Second, we were informed, literally an hour before we were about to launch our now-balloon-powered sculpture, that sensors would set off an alarm if it touched the ceiling. Without having a ceiling to rest up against, the unevenly distributed helium distorted the letters which were now simply tethered to chairs with fishing wire. And third, after finally arriving at a passable solution, someone came along and told us that using helium in our building was against "regulations." So overall, this really didn't turn out a whole lot like how we intended. But for a few hours, we managed to transform the CFA into a less rigid and sterile place, and that was good enough for me.

Category:

Nonprofits & Activism

Tags:

• refuse
• Buffalo
• design
• typography
• installation
• art
• balloons