Structural Patterns

This past fall, I entered in to a conversation with a man named Jerry who sat near me on a downtown Brooklyn bench. Jerry was very interested in what I do for a living and asked me to teach him any skills I may have. I told him that I’d be happy to, gave him my card, but told him that he’d have to show up sober. I haven’t heard back from Jerry yet. Some weeks later, I photographed people recycling in the Lower East Side during an afternoon walk about a week before Christmas 2015. There was no particular reason to take the photo other than I liked the composition. Here is the photograph as an animated illustration and a small portion of Jerry talking about the social contract in U.S. culture… According to Jerry, we all play a role in the project that is this country and he wants to play a larger role.

Can City from Studio Swine on Vimeo.

This is a brilliant project by art/design collective Studio Swine (Azusa Murakami and Alexander Groves). With so much waste and stuff in the world, do we really need to keep producing more? This project recycles waste – used vegetable oil and aluminum cans to create new aluminum objects via a mobile foundry. It’s an inspiring project executed in Sao Paulo, Brazil.