Idea 1: Plastic Pigeon Sculpture Trail

One route that I have considered developing would be a sculpture trail around Central London. Specifically, I was considering Trafalgar Square as it is an open space that is a tourist spot rather than just a busy intersection. My idea is to create a collection of pigeon sculptures which progressively become more plastic to reflect how the diet of pigeons in London includes the copious amount of litter on the streets with an ironic nod to the proverbial saying “you are what you eat”.

In this idea, I planned to make three to five small sculptures that would initially begin with a realistic pigeon model made of clay (or other suitable materials) and gradually add more obvious pieces of construction with the final sculpture being composed entirely out of trash. This concept aimed to bring awareness to the negative impacts of not throwing away your rubbish properly as pigeons eat this litter. As mentioned in my notes, this sculpture trail would play with the idea of rarity; there will be more plastic pigeon models than realistic ones.

In consideration to my messaging, I have thought about whether it would be more effective to keep this models small enough to blend in with live pigeons, or making them larger sculptures so that they are more obvious to the eye. I think it would also be effective irony to make these sculptures bird feeders to attract pigeons to these sculptures, establishing a visual contrast to real birds and the sculptures.

The cost of this project would be minimised as I would source materials, either literally litter picking the streets, or going to local recycling centres. It would also involve paying myself proportionately to the time that I spend finding materials and crafting the sculptures, as well as, paying a fee for installation. The latter could be crowdfunded due to the expensive realisation of any project in Trafalgar Square that is not commissioned; the organisers of the London Design Festival scrapped plans for a designer crazy golf course in Trafalgar Square following the failure of its crowdfunding campaign (Morby, 2016).

Some resources that I looked at, include:

Unit: Exploring Studio Practices Project 01: Space is the Place This page is part of the collection 'IVM YR 02 SOPHIE CHAN Group 9'.

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