Propositions for a Sustainable Formalism.

Propositions for a Sustainable Formalism.
Fanshawe Fine Art Foundations students
September 28-October 16, 2021
Satellite Project Space
Window Installation

Since the early 20th Century various artists and movements have resisted the art supply store for
acquiring materials, opting instead for readymade objects from “real life” to create their work. For example, Picasso’s cubist collages using newspapers and labels from bottles, Duchamp’s assemblages using bicycle wheels and stools, Dan Flavin’s light installations using industrially fabricated fluorescent tubes. Despite the readymade being a relevant sculpture material for over a century, with our current knowledge of climate change it has become much more crucial in the development of sustainable sculpture.
Students from the Fanshawe Fine Art Foundations program were asked to create a series of 50 sculptures using ethically sourced materials to create works in a responsible and sustainable way. They were asked to gather, collect, and a categorize a large inventory of found objects that have been discarded or otherwise thought of as useless. Once a large inventory of objects were collected they were asked to intuitively create formal abstract sculptures using the elements of sculpture – volume and mass, centre of gravity, space, surface, edge, texture, colour, and scale. These are their results.