Finalist of the Broomhill Sculpture Prize

Claudia Borgna

Thursday 17 March 2011

'THE BOTANY OF DESIRE' my art work for the outdoor space


TITLE:
'BEND ME, CHANGE ME, BEND ME MORE, BUT DON'T LEAVE ME, WE CAN WEATHER TOGETHER'.

I would like to thank the art students of the University of Texas at Dallas, all the stuff in charge of the University grounds, artist Albert Scherbarth and Prof. Greg Metz curator of the show, for all they wonderful help and support.

This outdoor installation of 5 elements about 10 feet high and made out of about 1500 plastic bags each, was made to interact with the Texan winds. Having said that I had experienced nor imagined how wild the spring Texan wind could be!
While setting up the wind was blasting 20 nods an hour and going up. The metal rods, under the sails weight of the bags bended within 10 minutes and had to be replaced with stronger once which also bended although not as much. Unfortunately that is how far I was able to see of this battle. I had to leave it transformations in the hands of the grounds stuff as I was to depart back to Europe. In the night a hurricane like storm of winds and rain led me to imagine nightmarish natural disasters of white plastic bags.
Despite all the drama and the stress in putting up the work and fighting the weather in the end I was pleased that everybody had to in one way or the other interact with the work! Also it has been a great experience and a learning curve fro me. My work is getting much more transient and aims to interact with the surrounding and therefore continuously transforming. I never thought it could be to this extend which has open new doors and vistas that need some time to think about and to resolve, definitely I have learned to let go and be less controlling!




No comments:

Post a Comment