Making it Move!
Seventh and eighth grade students in the Kinetic Sculpture arts elective class are currently exploring how to use air as an integral component in their sculptural work. Students began the term by investigating various types of sculptures they had seen in person, which included local examples of free-standing sculptures (such as the statue of Paul Revere on horseback near Old North Church), and relief sculptures (Robert Gould Shaw and the 54th Regiment Memorial across from the Massachusetts Statehouse). In contrast to those examples, kinetic sculptures are designed and built to incorporate movement. After creating a small-scale wire sculpture that included at least three moveable parts, students were inspired by the kinetic sculptures of American artist Joshua Allen Harris. Harris worked on a series of animal sculptures, made from plastic bags, that he positioned over subway grates in New York City that inflated – and deflated – with the passing of the trains below. This week students tried various strategies as they figured out how much air (from a fan)–and how to successfully harness it–to inflate their own sculptural creations.
