Project Evaluation

For this project, the central theme revolves around the Restoration of Nature, serving as a call to safeguard our natural environment. I studied the steel forests and the ecological pollution caused by modern urban development, recognising the intricate interplay between our surroundings and our daily lives.
To explore this concept, I investigated the transformative effects of high-temperature firing on aluminum sheets. The resultant bluish-purple hue, gradually enveloping the rusty iron making me think of a hallucinogenic response to consuming poisonous mushrooms. Through experimentation, I achieved the desired uneven surface texture, lending a unique visual and tactile dimension to my work.
My interest in mushrooms lies in their exploration of alternative ways of perceiving and knowing. The mushroom is an extension of my ongoing research around the "double" and "split principle", which I use as a tool for understanding. Mushrooms are mysterious beings in their own right, as the often exaggerated shapes, colours and compositions of different species make little sense in an evolutionary context. As such, they are symbols of uncertainty and ambiguity. Our existence has been linked from the very beginning to mushrooms, which thrive even in inhospitable areas, surviving different geological eras and ecological catastrophes. For mankind can contribute a lot, scientists at kew garden in London say that fungi can be used to break down waste plastics to combat the global plastic waste crisis, he is like a representative of nature, not only as a form of food, but also to give out toxins that cause organ failure throughout the body and death.

Someone don’t think we should care too much about species going extinct because extinctions are a part of the long process of evolution. The sixth mass extinction is different, however, because it’s forcing the natural world to adapt much faster than it has been able to – or disappear. A species’ extinction isn’t a singular event either: it always has a cascade of consequences, and humans are part of this cascade. "mushrooms are not poisonous to protect themselves, in fact mushrooms actually want to be eaten. Mushrooms secrete thousands of chemicals, some toxic to humans but not to certain insects, and are even a major food source.

Artist Hannah Streefkerk noticed that not all the grasses in her meadow were growing healthily, some of them were so scarred that they were in danger of becoming bald. In order to make them look 'refreshed', Hannah becomes a nature tinkerer, using traditional crochet and embroidery techniques to 'mend' the fragile nature. Through her work i can feel she expresses the phenomena of the natural world and translates them in a playful way into her own unmistakable artistic language. Her work can be seen as a visual metaphor for our shared responsibility to protect nature and minimise our impact on the environment, as well as prompting us to think about our natural surroundings.
She sews torn bark back together, mends holes in leaves, weaves protective clothing for rocks and works to preserve nature with humour and heart in her work. She creates unique textile installations that appear out of nowhere in nature, yet create a sense of colliding patchwork of two-dimensional effects in a realistic environment. These patches of grass stitched into the ground also present a picture that is disconnected from life but very wonderful.

I started out simply with cardstock, I began to draw the shapes I had selected on the cardstock then cut the cardstock and threaded the cardstock through the wire. After the cardboard model was made I felt that it was the effect I wanted, and right after that I started working with aluminium sheets. I started by drawing shapes on top of the aluminium sheet, cutting them with a cutter and then using a sander to edge sand the edges.The edges of the cut down aluminium pieces were sanded to my preferred texture using a MIG welder. I think the texture of the MIG welder weld is very special and paves the way with the later stages when I burnt the aluminium to discolouration. I started to think about how to burnish the colours as well as drilling holes in the aluminium for easy threading of the wire at a later stage. I started learning to cauterise the aluminium sheet with a spray gun and wait for it to partially change colour, which took on a bluish-purple hue, which I thought was fantastic. After waiting for the colour of the aluminium pieces to change, I tried to change its shape, I used a hammer to vary them all around to follow my cardboard model, and finally I used wire and different sizes of stainless steel balls to combine the aluminium pieces the three aluminium pieces to form the final piece.

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