SITE-SPECIFIC > Lakkos
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Hospital (Full View)
Dimensions variable. Orange peels, staples, nails, wheat glue, and nails. 2016.
For Hospital, I created “stained glass” from stapled-together orange peels that were then coated in wheat paste in order to make viewers aware of the decrepit building and reflect on the fact that it used to be a hospital. By creating a relationship between the crumbling hospital and oranges as a symbol of health in this context, I am to create a connection between the past and present to reflect on change over time.
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After 1945 (Closed View)
Dimensions variable. Red paint, red glitter, found shoes. 2016.The project After 1945 is part of my series of site-specific street art sculptures made for the Lakkos neighborhood in Heraklion, Crete during an artist residency at LAKKOS AIR. I researched this neighborhood in order to create site-specific works that revealed something about the neighborhood’s history, architecture, daily-life, as well as the political climate in Greece in general. After 1945 references the time period directly after WWII and its devastating effects on the Lakkos neighborhood. Driven to poverty, many of the female residence had to resort to prostitution in order to survive. To comment on this history I painted the inside of a cabinet red with glitter and placed red shoes inside and it can only be seen when someone opens the cabinet, highlighting this history in order to reflect upon the destruction of war and its many consequences.
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Phone Booth (Side View)
Dimensions variable. Phone Booth, paint, contemporary “artifacts”. 2016.
The project Phone Booth: A Secular Shrine is part of my series of site-specific street art sculptures made for the Lakkos neighborhood in Heraklion, Crete during an artist residency at LAKKOS AIR. I researched this neighborhood in order to create site-specific works that revealed something about the neighborhood’s history, architecture, daily-life, as well as the political climate in Greece in general. For Phone Booth: A Secular Shrine, I transformed an existing but abandoned photo booth into a mini secular shrine. Inspired by the mini Orthodox Church shrines seen throughout Greece that housed photos of saints, deceased loved ones, candles, and roses, I wanted to create a secular version of this shrine that celebrated the Lakkos neighborhood. I collected pieces of contemporary “artifacts” found on the street or in trash bins and put them in the phone booth. I also repainted the phone booth to reference the colors of the Greek flag, blue and white and the pattern I created came from using the bottoms of black plastic crates as stencils. After the installation was set up, children in the neighborhood started taking the pieces apart and playing with them, giving a new function to my intentions of the installation as well as the original function as a phone booth.
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The Ecstasy of God Gold and Glormany (Rooftop View)
Dimensions variable. Abandoned car, contact paper, string, wheat glue, tape, and paint. 2016.
The project The Ecstasy of God, Gold, and Glormany is part of my series of site-specific street art sculptures made for the Lakkos neighborhood in Heraklion, Crete during an artist residency at LAKKOS AIR. I researched this neighborhood in order to create sitespecific works that revealed something about the neighborhood’s history, architecture, daily-life, as well as the political climate in Greece in general. For The Ecstasy of God, Gold, and Glormany I wanted to reflect on colonization in the 21st century and how contemporary colonization does not take form in the “heroic” battles of the past, but instead turns physical brutality into conceptual cruelty by financially crippling a country into submission. The title not only references, the three G’s that European colonizers of America were often motivated by (God, Gold and Glory), but also has an art historical reference to Bernini’s Ecstasy of Saint Teresa . The spears of light and gold in Bernini’s Ecstasy of St. Teresa influenced the composition and lightening beams in my installation. Saint Teresa’s “ecstasy” is depending on interpretations, being closer to god and through that there is glory, in much of the same way colonizers in the past thought it was god’s calling for them to exploit other countries and resources under the guise of “civility.” I referenced the dramatic style of Baroque art that exudes dominance, control, power, and triumph. These themes that can also be seen my installation’s reference to the car as an Olympic podium complete with a droopy Olympic symbol as well as 1st , 2nd , and 3rd place whose colors are that of the German flag. The contact paper of tiles and wood on the car, the void mosaic on the ground, the handcrochet Olympic sign, as well as the religious painting in the background all reference domesticity and vulnerability felt by the colonized country.In this installation, I urge viewers to be aware of how meaning and actions of colonization can change over time and how we can use this to try to avoid falling into the viciousness of the past.
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