The installation mockup set in New York City during the COVID-19 pandemic aims to challenge what it really means to interfere with our planet’s natural environment and challenge how people interpret the meaning of the word “sustainability”.
DURATION
3 Weeks
COURSE
DSGN 264 Foundations of Art / Design / Digital Culture
TOOLS
Photoshop, Premiere Pro
01. INTRODUCTION
Man-made cities and urban sites have taken up pieces of land that once used to be residences for plant life and habitats for animals. But with the coronavirus pandemic, life in the major US cities have frozen. Streets became empty, people are locked in their homes, and the once ‘hustle-and-bustle’ downtowns started looking like ‘ghost cities’, abandoned.
What if, with human-made public life silenced, the energy of the natural environment becomes more and more visible? What if the nature is retaliating and coming back unexpectedly, and by growing wild and organically through urban concrete, its presence polarizes with silenced public life.
This installation aims to promote a greater understanding of sustainability and encourage people to take action to protect the environment.
02. DESIGN CONCEPT
Our installation will mirror the message that is conveyed in the natural seasoning - once the severe winter climate is gone, nature re-blossoms. Here, the human-made urbanism is a metaphor for severe winter climate.
Our installation is a living one, using real materials (real plants, trees, flowers) attached to concrete streets and pavement or walkways. Living animals roam through the streets.
The installation will take time during the NYC lockdown. During that time, public life is frozen, which creates once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for the streets to become a point of reference, helping people reflect by discerning the signs of nature that would otherwise be unnoticeable.
03. CONCLUSION
Our hope is that people who are being locked-down in their homes around Times Square will look outside their windows and see the wild nature present in the sphere that once used to be only ‘human-made’. Our hope is that this will challenge their assumptions of taking urban life for granted, as if the subways, streets, and glamour storefronts have always been there. Our hope is that this installation will challenge people's thinking about what is the real cost of urbanism and what does it really mean to live sustainably.