Event 1 Fowler

Event 1 Fowler museum

For Event 1, I visited the Fowler museum's Making Strange: Gagawaka + Postmortem. This exhibit by Vivan Sundaram, is comprised of sculptures of clothing made from recycled waste materials. Some of the materials included hair, vacuum tubing, handbags, corrugated rubber, bicycle tires, and consumable medical supplies such as medicine packets and surgical hair covers. By turning trash into unique pieces of clothing, Sundaram shows a way that trash from a technological world filled with manmade materials can be turned into art. Thus one of the ideas that I got out of this is the use of modern materials created through science to produce art, rather than natural materials such as stone, canvas, and mineral pigments.

The trash is turned into a sculpture of clothing. Interestingly, this clothing's main purpose is not for humans to wear. It is meant to exist as a sculpture to be fit onto a mannequin, with the manequin as another important part of the artwork. Sundaram' work is a commentary on the culture of consumerism and the human body. The use of trash to create clothing such as bicycle tires demonstrates how people throw out clothing and other fashion items for newer novel items. In addition, the use of medical waste such as X-ray film and medicine packets goes well with the medical technology and art section of the class.

I learned in class of the use of MRI's, anatomical drawings, and implants as examples of medical technology contributing to artistic expression. The use of existing medical supplies, including the X-ray images, to form sculptures of clothes is thus another unique way to incorporate medical technology into art. Finally, the sculptures of human anatomy remind me of the beginnings of medical art through studying anatomy and dissections. Overall, I would recommend this exhibit since it fits well with the class concept of medical technology and art and it would benefit you to see a thought provoking way in which medical technology has been made art, that is using pre existing medical supplies. 

Myself with the museum staff