Overgrowth

“To create a sculpture that draws the attention of consumers to the effects of over consumption under capitalism “

Much of the inspiration for this project comes from the phenomenon of trees and plant life consuming man made objects that they encounter in the wild. As much as some companies boast their recycling programs and more, much of the general public don’t know about the programs or have easy access to them. This leads to the continual filling of landfills across the country with products that can’t break down properly under those conditions.

Shoe Material Degrading Time Line

The time line created for material degrading time is guess work. Sure it is known how long it will take for more natural materials to breakdown, but the guess work is in the synthetic materials. The materials that more and more shoes and products are being made from.

Sculpture Ideation

During studio I got the chance to use the 3-D modeling program Gravity Sketch. working in 3-D through the program I was able to better visualize how I wanted this sculpture to look and interact with the world around it. working first with the idea of the roots of the tree expanding out from the midsole of the shoe. The expanded out roots took inspiration from trees in cityscapes that learn to survive in unnatural ways. With the original parameters of the project the roots out to the side of the shoe did not work for functionality. Moving away from the survival roots I started to work with the visual of natural grown roots and survival for the trunk of the tree.