A Random Walk (2018)
Originally developed for the Spring 2018 exhibition at Corners Gallery in Ithaca, NY, A Random Walk was an installation of geometric origami-like sculptures that was conceived as an extended improvisation on a theme; it was based on one sculpted print chosen from a previous body of work that consisted of folded paper patterns of pyramids and squares. Photographs of this seed piece became the source material for other sculpted prints, which were themselves selectively photographed and folded in turn. Through many repetitions of this meandering procedure, new pieces were recursively generated from the original parent. Along the way, some thematically related external images were incorporated into the mix, resulting in a diverse chorus of variations on a single object.
The centerpiece of A Random Walk was a 6-by-9-foot tapestry of folded paper that was mounted directly to the wall. This sculpted print showed a close-up view of the folded shapes in one of the other pieces, with the implied three-dimensional space of the photograph being flattened by its conversion to black and white. This image also appeared in various guises elsewhere in the installation, and its landscape-like qualities suggested a functional relationship between the operations of photographing and folding used here and the cartographer’s practice of mapmaking.
Photographs by Sheryl Sinkow and Werner Sun