Installation Art: Readymades

Installation art is an artistic genre of three-dimensional works. They are often site-specific and designed to transform the perception of a space.  With found objects or readymades, borrowing from  French-American artist Marcel Duchamp's use of ordinary manufactured objects, our class selected and modified an array of objects found on campus to create the installations shown in our blog gallery. Their installations reflect on social issues and environmental awareness with the objective of creating a conversation with the public.  Strong visuals lead to a variety of subject matters that invite viewers to reach their own conclusions through contemplation.

The Resourceful Canoe

In this piece we have used nature's resources and day to day objects to portray two basic survival needs South Floridians should never forget: shade and hydration.  The sun is so hot in our region, that we have included an umbrella for shade and protection from U.V. rays.  The heat and humidity are so high that we also added a water bottle for hydration, which is essential to stay alive in our area.  The palm frond turned into a canoe, situates the piece in the tropics, specifically in the Everglades, symbolizing the native history of our part of the country, when native men and women used the canoe as a form of transportation through our shallow waters.  The combination of natural elements in brown color with inorganic materials in bright red accentuate their differences. Yet, it also suggests that both natural and artificial resources can be used tandem to enhance human life.

The Learing Tower of Piso

Christina Beltran, Kennedi, Marissa, Amanda

This piece represents a reconstruction of the unvertical use of mundane objects.  Instead of keeping all signs  on the floor, we used one of them on the floor to allow for the others to be unconventionally built up from the ground.  The warning piso mojado written on the plastic yellow cone, becomes the foundation of the tower representing the main language spoken in Miami-Dade County.  The mid part of the tower is another plastic wet floor sign that also warns people in French/Creole and English, the other two official languages in the County. In this mid section, there is a triangle within which there is a symbol; it may represent a person falling as a result of the floor being wet or it may be an invitation to fall on a wet floor? The third wet floor sign shows a circle within which there is the symbol of a hand signaling to stop. Is the tower a contradiction?  On one side, it may invite us to come and fall and on the other to stop. The unsettling cardboard box on the tower's top shows the contrast between the organic nature of the top versus the inorganic origin of the bottom. The base of the tower is firm becoming less so towards the top.  Is this a metaphor for the kind of world we live in?

The Futuristic Society

Angela Moon, Destiny Washington, Lucia Pampana, Ximbei Huang

This installation piece represents how our future society will turn out if it keeps going on the same path. Everything is barely hanging on, upside down, enmeshed, out of order.  However, the mixed elements of the piece: fabric, plastic, high gloss paper, cardboard and a marker, all together symbolize that we are still stuck in the past.  The predominantly green colored paper at the very bottom and the read cardboard box at the top, suggests a pyramid of destruction, where nature eventually goes up in flames due to human disdain for ecological balance.

 The Millennial

Mackenzie Buckley, Chelsea Jocelyn, Kyra Williams, Masai Rains, Tommy Covelli

The skeleton represents college students who feel dead inside.  The Florida native green branch substitutes the skull crowning their desire to find meaning in nature.  The sunglasses reveal these millennials live in Florida where the sun is the brightest even during the Winter season.  Their quest for happiness and life is expressed through two upward green leaves replacing the arms, open, upwards as if welcoming life's embrace. A downward palm leave hanging from a rib, on the opposite side of the heart means the contradiction between wanting to live life to the fullest while feeling dead.   

No Boundaries

Paige, Tiff, Sally, Nate, Danielle, Alexia

The small Goldfish cracker lying on the biggest stone in the center represents you, sometimes feeling alone, in the sea, despite hearing how "there are many fish in the sea." Surrounding you, there are pieces of sticks and smaller stones that "may break your bones" or ultimately "bring you down."  However, the loose boundaries represented by the metal pieces framing the upper left angle and the palm leaves observed on the upper and lower sides, on the outside of you, represent how creativity can help you feel less alone, as if you can achieve everything.