SEE/SAW
Mia Larkin, Madeline Thomas, and Emma Davis
This final project draws inspiration from Allan Wexler’s Wall: I Want to Be Architecture, a quietly radical work that seamlessly blends construction logic with sculptural intent and spatial play.
A see-saw, by definition, is a long plank fixed on a fulcrum, with seats on each end for the user to swing up and push down alternately. In its very essence, it requires two people on opposite ends of the same plank for the see-saw to move. There is an interdependent relationship between both users. By constructing a wall with a see-saw in the middle, the wall takes on a new, disrupted meaning. Walls usually connote the idea of keeping something or someone “in”, and “The Other’ out.
By the insertion of the see-saw, the wall is now disrupted by a unifying object. See-saws necessitate the idea of trust, co-existence, interdependence, and cooperation in order to lift off the ground. By adding opacity to the “window between” users, each user is forced to inherently trust the other, possibly an anonymous stranger. The user can “see” barely over the window barrier, seeing vaguely that there is a person on the other side, but not knowing who. It is only when both users trust each other and lift off the ground that they are able to rise above the opaque part of the window and see the opposite through the transparent portion of the window, now having “saw” the opposite side.
24–09–2024