Creative Direction, Art, Design, Events, Photography & Production
pipe dream n. An unattainable, fanciful or vain hope, notion or scheme.
For much of humanity, a new world is a pipe dream, safety for the family unit against war or hunger in their homeland is unattainable. On the flip side acceptance by humans for humans within a new homeland can also be out of reach.
Pipe dream is a project focused on humanity and togetherness. A laying down of veins, a new arterial system pumping cultural life blood through the urban landscape. Through semiotic analysis of traditional ideography, visual language is merged, colour is celebrated and it’s placement carefully considered to conjure a correlation to heritage and culture (e.g. flags, ochre, staple food, textiles). What results is the skin to the arterial system which weaves itself through public spaces encouraging the flow of acceptance, and essentially feeding a new infrastructure celebrating the cultural diversity in which this world encompasses. A new language of hieroglyphics, a relearning of language to promote an ever evolving organism that is the world we live in and the global tribe we all belong to.
Visual representations in a variety of languages and indigenous motifs were researched. The icons, symbols and scripts of core concepts of humanity (love, tolerance, knowledge, courage, strength, acceptance, forgiveness, patience etc) were then combined. From Arabic script to Turkish rug motifs. African Adinkra symbols to Japanese Kanji. Western icons to Indigenous Australian symbols of story telling and community. Native American totems and icons to “hobo” graffiti, Indonesian Toraja wood carving symbolism and Maori Kora. These visual indicators have been used for thousands of years to convey core ideals of societies and culture.
Following the essence of the newly formed insignias created for a new world would make the “pipe dreams” of humanity a reality.
This project was a finalist in the 2013 Chippendale New World Art Prize.