Project 9: Shelter

For this prompt titled "Shelter", I created a wave out of cardboard and nuts & bolts.

Born in Vietnam, I lived under the comforts of my family home - 5 other people, all looking after me and my wellbeing.

As I travel to the US to study, the shelter loses its grounds. Having no parents, grandparents, or siblings around, I was by myself. Simultaneously, I was without a physical home, a place I could return when needed. Paying tribute to my time living alone during the Covid-19 pandemic, my summer living alone in Pennsylvania, and my journey around different parts of New Jersey and of the United States, this piece resembles the assembly of my temporary shelters: cardboard moving boxes, very simply assembled and held together by nuts and bolts. My shelter was not a physically strong shelter, but rather a shelter made of memories and experiences - a wave that pushes my ship forward as I explore the unknown facades of America and of young adulthood.

Inspired by Tadashi Kawamata's "Wave" (2016), I cut out cardboard boxes, attached them together with nuts and bolts, held the piece up with microfilaments, and created a base of flattened boxes.

Materials:

- Used cardboard/moving boxes

- Variety of nuts and bolts

- Microfilament

- Hot glue

- Exacto knife