Skydivers
By Swetha Kannan

As Logs, trees, and leaves begin to decay, as they do with every passing of seasons, it’s interesting to see the adventurous skydivers that can begin to take root in the decay and, with it’s force, pull trees, leaves, and others down to the ground. These skydivers are the fungus and bacteria that begin to swarm and ferment in the roots of dying organisms. They are beautiful and interesting to behold, and in a final effort to give a tree a glorious ending, pull them down to the ground where they will be consumed and eaten by the bacteria.
The Skydivers project was my way to attempt to memorialize these events that happen outside of our notice. The falling of trees and leaves are events that we feel do not matter or that we ignore all together. I’ve tried to integrate this aspect of nature in our every day lives in a whimsical fashion so that we may appreciate this small part of nature that we seldom even think about.

I am fascinated by the entire life cycle of objects, including the part of the object’s history that continues after its use.  I collected objects that were broken or missing pieces.  These details would otherwise render the objects useless or undesirable.  I searched for some connection to the object’s larger history or to the human relationship with the object.

In this collection, I focused on collecting things that I saw outside which I could imagine that I have lost at some point in my life. In this way, it was like ‘reclaiming’ lost things for myself rather than just taking it off the street. Surprisingly, it seems like many other girls besides myself loose their hair bands.

For this collection, I chose pieces that students believed was their most precious belonging.  Whether it was due to sentimental reasons or nostalgic memories, the items they chose were special to them.

In this assignment, we were asked to change one system in our lives. I chose to focus on something that I had been thinking about this break; the system of communication in our society. More specifically, I was thinking more along the lines of how we are more willing to offer criticism rather than praise because of societal pressures. Especially when someone is looking to improve themselves, it is more often that they do it through criticism (negative feedback) rather than praise (positive feedback).

Therefore, for this assignment, I decided to send positive feedback to everyone on my contact list. Granted, this list is very small since I am apparently an unsociable person who isn’t in the habit of asking for numbers. However, I found it interesting to reconnect with people I never talk to anymore (like my freshman room mate) and to offer them things I noticed were their strong points or praise for things they have done for me in the past.

This is a master compilation of the texts I sent and received texts back from :

More Documentation: I printed out the texts I received back and mounted them so that each has their own iphone – like frame.

This was an interesting project for me since I sent out texts early that morning and was receiving and sending out even more throughout the day. It was especially nice to hear from people who I have not kept in contact with and to hear the nice ompliments I got back in return. One of the more surprising things turned out to be that people who I am friends with but not very close to replied instantly whereas people who I am extremely close to still haven’t replied. I suppose it has to do wih ‘no words needed’?