The Brief

Oliver Thode

Our project is a wearable sculpture created for Peter, a part of the On Display performance, produced by Heidi Latsky Dance. The purpose is to create a visual representation of Peter's personality. It is a chest plate with attached scissor lifts and vines, reflecting what we discovered about Peter after talking to him.

Peter has Cerebral Palsy in his legs, and thus spends much of his time in his wheelchair. But through this, he still manages to rock climb and go outdoors, his passions. We wanted to take this and put it into a physical realization. We put the overlapping vines into the sculpture to stick with our theme, and in much the same vein we took a picture of leaves, turned up the contrast and used the lines to make the shape our chest plate. We wanted the vines to undulate in and out in a natural way. In order to achieve this, we made the lifts actuate at different times by using different lengths of string routed up and attached to a wristband. Nearly the entire project is is made from thin plywood, with a felt backing for the chest plate in terms of physical materials.