This work is a critique of society’s sometimes seemingly arbitrary, rules-based blanket approach to decision-making and institutionalization.
Just as the ‘NO’ sign effectively communicates the suppression of an activity – symbolized by a pictogram – an empty ‘NO’ sign without context symbolizes a blind rule-making culture that suppresses and withholds social progress.
Part performance, part origami art, Folded Meanings involves me sitting in front of a stack of printed stock of the ubiquitous NO sign, a simple red outlined circle dissected by the authoritative, diagonal slash.
Through strictly geometric folds, I proceed to fold each NO sign until it transforms, three-dimensionally or otherwise, into something else.
Each item is then labelled and pinned to the wall as its new incarnation, a folded meaning.
