The students' Monuments for Los Angeles, framed here as they were presented in the exhibition at Otis College of Art & Design.
Monument and Copy by: Jingyi Leng. For Jingly the bright blue sky of L.A. is her monument because a blue ski is never visible in her hometown in china due to the smog and clouds. She used The Copy as a tool to take the blue sky back to china. She treated the sky as a painting of which she scratches off the blue paint. Ones done she can collect the blue residue and take a physical copy of the sky home.
Monument and Copy by: Tina Miyakawa As her Monument Tina chose a patch of grass growing through a gap in a streets of L.A. It represents nature which is always finding its way through human constructions. She described the monument, sent the text to all her contacts on social networks and asked them to send back an illustration based on that text. She received about 30 “Copies” of the original image solely based on the text. This Monument can be copied continuously...
The students' Monuments for Los Angeles, framed here as they were presented in the exhibition at Otis College of Art & Design.
Designweek 2015
Otis College of Art & Design
In collaboration with:
Lu Liang
Finished: 2015
As part of the 2015 Design week at the Otis College of Art & Design, we (Lu Liang and myself) where invited to organise a workshop for Graphic Design Students. The topic chosen by the College was: “I am the City”. To us, “I am the city” as a theme, suggests radicalism, arrogance and especially confidence. We could only imagine it to be put into words by an emperor, ruler or dictator from earlier civilizations for which, ancestors erected physical evidence in the form of monuments in order to commemorate that person. We wanted the students to be as confident as an emperor and find their Monument in L.A and transform them into their own “Automonument”.
Task 1: Within the thin fabric of Los Angeles the students where asked to find the object, space, or site that represents their OWN monument for L.A.
Task 2: Copying was used as a tool to isolate the Monuments from its original context and historical value, transforming it into the students’ Automonument. We all want to be original because we want to be different, but repetitions and copies seldom appear unchanged and are therefore also a producer of difference. This has been proven in full force by the students work.
© Cédric Van Parys