Cracks and Shurinks-Volca04 by Ryota Akiyama

Object / Organic

Published: 17.02.2021

Thermal shrinkage, molding.

Plastic is a material that has been linked to environmental pollution. It is an increasing concern to replace plastic with sustainable materials and to enforce responsible use of packaging materials. Ryota Akiyama would like to see plastic esteemed value-free as a material with certain properties. He experimented with the material in order to explore its characteristics and to test which shape suits it best, which new shapes could arise. His experiments are based on the variables of temperature and time. For his vases, he used polystyrene, a heat-shrinkable chemical compound, and two types of water-based paints. By changing the variables of heating temperature, thickness, and density of the polystyrene, amount of pigment, humidity and room temperature, exposure time to air before the heating process, etc., the material works itself, human manipulation no longer has any influence, so that for Ryota Akiyama the resulting objects have the character of natural objects. His concern is to move plastic into the group of basic materials such as ceramics, glass, or metal and to consider it beyond all connotations. The result of Ryota Akiyama's experiments are vessels of intense colour and an unusual surface structure. The surfaces are grooved, appear almost frill-like or puffed up, therefore receiving a textile-like appearance.

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