Cardboard

PULP: Reclaimed Materials Art and Design April 27th

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There will be a unique event Architecture For Humanity Toronto and PULP: Reclaimed Materials Art and Design is holding on April L7OdEt0U5pxgbFRu-V9DKA3VHtVF0DQzjOzYV2MNDjA27th at Metropolis Factory (50 Edwin Avenue – close to Dundas St. West Station on Bloor)). It’s called PULP: paper art party and it will be exploring more active programmatic uses for an art show such as dancing, play, and conversation inside, under, or on the art.

From their release:

We are organizing artists and designers to collect blue-bin materials, especially paper and cardboard, to source their designs of installations and furniture. Our vision is to bring together professional artists (some of which we already reached) and students from all schools around Toronto. We have student representatives at U of T, Ryerson, Waterloo, OCAD, and Humber College. We are excited to give students the opportunity to work alongside professional designers and other students from different schools, to form connections and strengthen Toronto’s design community in a casual and fun settings. We are also committed to explore new sustainable practices and alternatives to the current life-cycle of paper products – it is our belief that while recycling is a good idea, its current practice can be greatly improved. We are inspired by Cradle to Cradle (William McDonough) and Garbage Warrior (Michael Raynolds).

We have these ideas about community, collaboration, and sustainability but we do not want to preach people – we’d rather get them on the dance floor or see them sitting on a cardboard sofa with a drink. The earlier part of the event will be more relaxed (music-wise) to encourage conversation and interaction with the art. There will be a live band (from Humber College’s music program) and several DJs. There will also be a large projection screen that will show video art (we are accepting submissions for that too) and design students’ copywork.

You can find out more on our website - http://pulpartparty.ca/

Our Facebook page - https://www.facebook.com/PulpArtParty

And the Facebook event page - https://www.facebook.com/events/581888158491090/

Hot Times at the Silver Bullet

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With graduation over, work on the Trailer Trash restoration has heated up.  The 1951 Spartan Royal Mansion left it’s CalArts home on June 15 and was towed 10 miles to a canyon on the the outskirts of Santa Clarita, where lizards and coyote are almost as plentiful as motorcyclists roaring up the road to the Angeles National Forest.

Sam’s cousin, Sasuke Breen, came from Japan to help out.  A recent graduate in geology from Kyoto University,  he spent a month helping Sam get ready to install the walls and ceiling.  He crafted and installed wooden strips to reinforce the studs on the walls and ceiling.   Then he made cardboard templates for the walls and ceiling – not as easy as it looks. The job requires lots of measuring and patience.  It’s hard to imagine how the job would have gotten done would have gotten done without Sasuke’s help. 

This post is part of a series documenting Sam Breen’a Spartan Restoration Project. Please see his first post here and check out the archive here. The CSPA is helping Sam by serving in an advisory role, offering modest support and featuring Sam’s Progress by syndicating his feed from http://spartantrailerrestoration.wordpress.com as part of our CSPA Supports Program.

A Mayan Pyramid Built From Recycled Boxes and Hope | Inhabitat #COP16

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Inhabitat was on the scene yesterday at COP16 when tcktcktck, a global network of NGOs, pieced together this colorful Mayan pyramid. Sure, it’s made from recycled boxes, but this cardboard monument is a little more than green materials. In fact, it’s covered in images submitted by NGOs worldwide, sending a message of passion and hope for the talks ahead. Read on to learn about how you can be part of this massive collaboration (hint: it has to do with that blank TV screen…)

via COP16: A Mayan Pyramid Built From Recycled Boxes and Hope | Inhabitat – Green Design Will Save the World.

eARTh Flash Flood in New Mexico

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The Santa Fe EARTH event, put on by 350.org and the Santa Fe Art Institute, shows how the Santa Fe River could look if there was water running through it. With global warming decreasing snow melt, Santa Fe is running out of water. This river is one of the 10 most endangered in North America. Over a 1,000 people came out and held up blue painted pieces of cardboard or tarps as a satellite passed over.

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pGExEIYXK58

To answer the obvious question: no, we don’t think these are going to have an immediate political effect, turn Cancun upside down, cause Jim Inhofe to change his mind. But we do think that they are one key part in the work of building a movement big enough to matter. And I hope you enjoy looking at them—I sure do.We’ve got more allies, of more types, out there than we sometimes remember.

– Bill McKibben

Read McKibben’s guest Blog on this event at Climeprogress.org

Another kind of model village…

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As Sterling’s blog Beyond the Beyond points out, artist Sergio Cezar makes huge models of the Brazilian favelas out of cardboard.

There is something disturbing about scale. The 200 dolls houses of Rachel Whiteread’s Place(2008) – part of Psycho Buildings at the Hayward – were downright creepy. Maybe it’s because there’s something unsettling about the way we loom over things when they’re unsettlingly small. You can’t help feeling a little like Adolf Hitler looming over Albert Speer’s models for a new Berlin.

It’s also something to do with the fact that we aim for a kind of perfection when making models. I once met a criminologist who made model villages. True story. I wondered if he would put the odd burglar breaking into a model house into his creations but it turned out his model villages were entirely crime free. He preferred it that way. We Brits tend to make villages set in some imaginary idyllic past.

And so when you look at them there’s a dissonance between their vision of miniature perfection and the imperfection of what they represent. Which is why I kind of like this vision of a slum; it makes it look cute for a second until you start thinking of what it must be like to live in it and what that person in the black limousine is doing there.

Go to RSA Arts & Ecology