The Art of Assemblage

“ Best from the waste” or “Trash to Treasure” are few of the activities which everyone has definitely done when we were in school . When I heard about the activity that we had to do in EPC workshop , I got nostalgic and all I could thing was about the fun I had when I did these kind of activities. I was curious to do it as it would definitely lead to understanding of the concepts which I never thought while I did it initially . We had to collect different type of discarded materials from our household ,road side or a charity shop. It was interesting to find the materials as we are generally ignorant towards most of them but now we had to observe and select them which we think has a potential to be reused .

I selected a piece of colored sheet which I painted during the coloring workshop , few safety pins, and a shell from my household for the workshop. At the workshop , we started the exercise by discussing about different methods of joining and attaching the materials . It was exciting to discuss the objects and its joineries which we see everyday but are ignorant towards it like the buttons on our sweaters, the hinge on the watch etc. It was quite fun to brainstorm and realize the methods of joining by observing the objects around us and how they are connected.

We had to make an assemblage with the aim of not to conceptualize but to let our brain wander around and create an abstract artwork. I had a piece of paper and a discarded wooden panel which I found in the workshop in the discarded zone. I have always used glue to join or stick paper to wood whenever I had to make anything  with those two materials. So I decided that I will make an assemblage art using other methods to join both the material rather than using the glue in minimum time. I used stapler to join the corners of the paper and made a chain out of the safety pins which I had brought to the studio.  I made a hole in the shell and put it in the safety pin . There were large circular holes in the MDF sheet . I wanted to connect the paper and the sheet but did not want to use those holes which were already present. I made two small holes using the machine and used the safety pin to join it to the paper.

Every material has power to narrate a story and when they come together a different story is narrated just because of their association to one another. The abstract art I made is assemblage of two materials having stark opposite properties, one which is strong , rigid and require strength to change its forms and other which is soft and could be converted into any form easily. It is a type of mixed media art – assemblage. This assemblage narrates a  story of an artform floating between two completely different materials coming together to form a unique artwork . It has its own expression which is perceived differently by different people.

By end of the class everybody had different assemblages narrating different stories. It was quite interesting to see how the most the random things that we consider as unimportant could be made into beautiful artforms. It made me realize that the artistic possibilities could be found in everyday objects around us , even those which we consider as trash.

I was introduced to a new form of artwork due to the activity conducted in the class. Though I have heard about the assemblage artworks before but had never got an opportunity to get closely associated with it and make an object inspired by the artform . The artwork style not just pushes you to be innovative but it also is a very unique method that could be adapted for sustainable lifestyle.