PAPER A+AIRPLANES
Paper A+Airplanes was a temporary installation that covered the tops of all 18 indoor office pods in The University of Tennessee’s Art + Architecture building with a layer of paper airplanes. Why? Simple–because it couldn’t have happened anywhere else. The A+A Building has an ineffable spatial quality that practically begs paper airplanes to be thrown into it. Covering the pods with paper airplanes was, quite simply, a fulfillment of the most obvious idea most people have when looking out from the building’s fourth floor. The exhibit was a monument to every paper airplane that ever was and ever will be, and then some. It fulfilled, in some sense, the twisted desire for catastrophe, á la NASCAR or Evel Knievel, for it was a compendium of crash landings. Thousands of failed flights formed one successful mission.
Over the course of six months, 20 students both inside and outside of the college folded 42,371 total paper airplanes. Each student was asked to fold a minimum of 2,500 planes (most hit this goal, and a select few went over -- my personal final contribution was 7,502 planes, or just over 15 reams of standard copy paper). To prepare for the installation process, a 1:1 scale replica of a slice of an office pod was built off-campus, and strategies were tested and timed. Instructional videos for the installation team were produced. Installation occurred in the middle of the night on August 30th, 2022, from 7pm to 3am. Paper A+Airplanes was up for viewing for three days. Deinstallation occurred in the middle of the night on September 1st from 9pm to midnight.
TYPE : Installation
YEAR : 2022
LOCATION : The University of Tennessee Art + Architecture Building
COLLABORATORS : Jacob Abdu, Chloe Baker, Julia Bryant, Anthony Burgarino, Dakota Doolittle, Chloe Dyer, Max Frasher, Amy Gonzalez, Parker Greene, John Greene, Guille Greene, Charlie Greene, John Hamilton, Andrew Keys, Sydney Kraslawsky, Ella Larkin, Matthew Luck, Colby Moldrup, Cecy Ornelas, Mary Powers, Wes Roden, Tyler Row, Selene Rowan, and Mariam Siahatgar
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