Urban theorists posit that we experience the city by the way in which we move through it. My work is directly inspired by my daily commutes in the city on foot, bicycle, bus or train through an ever-evolving architectural landscape. Primarily, I am interested in structural failure, construction, development and urban renewal. My work consists of drawings and architecturally-flawed installations made out of paper, cardboard, wax or foil. My work comes from a place of great anxiety about things being unstable or falling apart.
I have always been fascinated with the rate at which buildings get torn down and built back up in cities. It seems there is a constant constructing, destructing, excavating, renovating and rebuilding taking place in New York–the rate of redevelopment is exciting and alarming. I am interested in issues that come with development and urban renewal, such as the fragility of communities and lost histories, but also how these issues serve as metaphors for memory and personal upheaval. Untimely industrial accidents, the destruction of a long forgotten building, or an eviction from someone’s childhood home all feel like issues that are personal, yet universal. Terms that are important to the process of creating this work are foundation, preservation, façade and retrofit.
I am also interested in collapse–of buildings and bridges, but also of the mechanisms that keep our society running. The last six years have seen the collapse of levees, this country’s housing market, and finally, world financial systems.
Important elements in my work are engineering, scale, shadows and easily recognizable materials. The construction of each piece is labor-intensive, yet once built, the work will soon break, decay or be deconstructed. In this way there is a sense of urgency for experiencing each piece, as this is temporary work. It is important that construction flaws be left visible–I intend to expose the process and techniques used in the creation of each work. With this work I intend to generate questions and emphasize tension relating to dialectics of creation and destruction, vulnerability and indestructibility, the light and the dark, the stable and the tenuous.
Visit Sonya Blesofsky's website here.
I have always been fascinated with the rate at which buildings get torn down and built back up in cities. It seems there is a constant constructing, destructing, excavating, renovating and rebuilding taking place in New York–the rate of redevelopment is exciting and alarming. I am interested in issues that come with development and urban renewal, such as the fragility of communities and lost histories, but also how these issues serve as metaphors for memory and personal upheaval. Untimely industrial accidents, the destruction of a long forgotten building, or an eviction from someone’s childhood home all feel like issues that are personal, yet universal. Terms that are important to the process of creating this work are foundation, preservation, façade and retrofit.
I am also interested in collapse–of buildings and bridges, but also of the mechanisms that keep our society running. The last six years have seen the collapse of levees, this country’s housing market, and finally, world financial systems.
Important elements in my work are engineering, scale, shadows and easily recognizable materials. The construction of each piece is labor-intensive, yet once built, the work will soon break, decay or be deconstructed. In this way there is a sense of urgency for experiencing each piece, as this is temporary work. It is important that construction flaws be left visible–I intend to expose the process and techniques used in the creation of each work. With this work I intend to generate questions and emphasize tension relating to dialectics of creation and destruction, vulnerability and indestructibility, the light and the dark, the stable and the tenuous.
Visit Sonya Blesofsky's website here.