Completed!

I'm delighted to note that my first room of many is completed. I hit a few glue gun road blocks but I think it captured the essence the memory. I am the most exited about the mini lamps and wall mirror.

 

Room 1: An Adventure

Construction of the first room is almost complete!
This room is inspired by an interview with a 23 year old woman from New Jersey.

Here is an excerpt from our dialog:

“Its just the bed, the TV the console that holds the tv, two night stands, um and the off to the side you have your bathroom and the sink you know, that’s you know outside of the room, I mean outside of the bathroom.

The red roof color scheme is like red. (laughing) the sheets are all white. I don’t even remember the carpet color. Just like a flat carpet. The walls were fluffed up with just like a few generic hotel.. art. The bathroom was good. The area into the bathroom was like wooden floors. All the Red rooms had been recently renovated. I don’t know since when but they are pretty nice. We wouldn’t have gone to them as often as we did if it was nasty. No but it was actually pretty clean. The bathroom was clean, It was just the toilet, and then the bathtub and the shower and the curtains were white. The wooden floors where like a light brown. Like a tan. No it was like that’s fake wood that’s just like a a… when you walk into the room its like carpet to the sink area and the bathroom.

“Oh so when Isie was sleeping and I was sleeping It would just be dark and if I couldn’t sleep id fall asleep to watching tv. And that would light up the room. Yeah it was exciting because we were there to just hang out, just me and him. It was a different sensation. And it was our personal space, and every time we pass it, I’m like look our home! Our first home! It was a situation iv never been in. it was more of like an adventure."

Thesis: The Big Idea

It is my senior year at Mason Gross School of the Arts. It's sad and exciting for all the typical reasons. Throughout the past three years people mentioned how fast college passes by, but I had no idea how right they were. My time at Rutgers was/is a crazy jam packed whirlwind of experiences. Looking back at my freshman self, reminds me that I evolved in many surprising ways. I don't think I changed in a super incredible dramatic way. I think I just leaned, a lot, which is good, because that's the point of school.

Part of my senior year, as a design major, is applying what I have learned to a thesis project. I am required to research something meaningful to me, create a purposeful work, and show it off at the end of the year.

I decided to explore the idea of the miniature. Mini objects, doll houses, tiny homes, mini cupcakes, mini  dachshunds and so on. Why are people attracted to miniature things? What is intriguing about something reduced to a smaller scale?
 The answer is, there are many reasons. Sometimes making something miniature is cheaper, or has less calories, or just looks adorable. Small things can be more palatable or less intimidating.

Small objects requires a viewer to get closer, to get intimate. The doll house seems like the most obvious example of this. A viewer, has to get down and close up and personal with a little mini set up world. The change in scale requires the viewer enter an new space. They have to see something relatively ordinary, like a bed or chair, but in a new miniature intimate context.

I am fascinated by the effect of the miniature and I want to use it to create empathy. It is hard to empathize with people who hold different views, or live life differently than one does. People can be intimidating or scary.

 I want to make mini models of different individual's personal space or significant room based on their description. Each model or room becomes an addition to the whole, "doll house." Displayed alongside a book of descriptions, the viewer can see a representation of someones life in a non-threatening and intimate way.

My goal is that this will bring about some empathy and maybe excitement for the innumerable variances that human beings have. I hope to log my progress here as the project develops.