Wax Paper Installation

The idea of feminizing space is the idea of seeking a more balanced equal world.  This piece is my first major attempt to study the "how" of feminizing, to see my ideas work on a physical and visual level.  I was lucky enough to gain access to one of the MFA thesis galleries at Claremont Graduate University (where I'm attending) during the off season (summer).  Its a big rectangle: 37.5 feet long by 25 ft wide by 16 feet high.  The space is gorgeous with blank white walls, white ceiling and white track lighting, and a used but wax cement floor.  The problem is the shape, which is a box. 

The rectangle, the cube, the box, the square are all the shapes we are exposed to with architecture.  There are reasons for this such as maximization of space, efficiency in building, ease of located/manufacturing building materials to name a few.  These are all concerns whenever building anything, but somehow they have won in the minds of designers and architects and those with approval stamps and gold start stickers.  My argument is that they are a masculine concern and there are a lot of social implications of a created environment that are neglected and ignored or even disbelieved because it can be detrimental to the male ego.  To say that a room would have influence over you is to say you are week.  To say that a social concern is your concern is to say that you are weak.  I don't exactly agree with gender roles or column A is female and column B is male, but when they are thrust upon society to a point that you are raised with a sense of these roles and standards through generations, they do mold your conversations and ideas.  Rectangular rooms are everywhere.  Most architecture created in the last 50 years gets innovative only when seeking to offer variation to the rectangle, and are hard pressed to throw it out completely.  We are surrounded by rooms, buildings, shed, bus stations, offices, telephone booths, bathroom stalls, etc. that conform to this shape. 

Feminization of Space, Wax Paper is me trying to examine the question of what kind of power does an environment's shape hold?  What happens when we leave those shapes behind.  Does changing material help?  This installation started with a solution of weaving material together as a quick and easy way to replace the straight walls an d corners with a rounded wall.  The material needed to be white so it blended in with the existing walls.  The goal was to change the shape of the room to something more organic and rounded, less symmetrical, and to a softer material.  The lighting was such that you could not see the actual walls of the room, just my alteration.  I chose basket weaving as the method to create this piece firstly because of its form building ability, and that it could use lightweight material and still work.  Secondly it does bring other feminine aspects to the room being a domestic/craft construction method.  Something on a roll seemed not only practical for the act of construction, but also would act like a fat string in weaving.  Wax paper wound up being the medium of choice, as it was very cheap and translucent white, so that it would still allow light to fill the space and the color would blend in with the wall so it would help create the feeling that it was part of the room or part of the wall.

Though I agree with the comments I received about the appearance of the outside (that the outside is just as interesting to see as the inside), the work is meant to be viewed from the interior only.  You walk into a room that possesses all these qualities that are lacking in the traditional box format.  The "walls" themselves glow because of the nature of wax and having to place lights outside the piece because of lack of track inside the piece.  The weaving added a (albeit unexpected) sense of movement which is not typical to architecture or rooms.  Weaving also brought about the association of fabric to the viewers which in turn reads as cozy and warm.  Socially I think the shape created provided more options for someone occupying the space:  I spent an afternoon in the space to try to pick up on nuances that I might have missed in making the piece, where I was mostly experiencing the outside.  the curves of the walls allow you to tuck yourself under the wall a little if you were so inclined.  The space did not feel overwhelmingly vast, empty and boring as the room normally feels.  Though the size of the room was shrunk in the creation of the piece, it still feels big because I left the top open exposing the ceiling.  As the AC kicked in the wax paper gently and delicately moved and covered the industrial hum of the ducts with a light crinkly sound.

I think I will definitely be examining this concept again, with this specific method of altering the shape of the predominantly masculine architecture.  With perhaps a grant I'd like to use fabric and weave more carefully to create a larger piece in a space where you can experience the inside and outside of it.  Something like a mall or office atrium, where the second floor would have a view of the exterior and the first floor could experience the inside.