zippers

Posts tagged
with zippers

Art Design

An Oversized Zipper Ship Opens the Sumida River Flowing Through Tokyo

Japanese artist Yasuhiro Suzuki long has wondered about what lies beneath the surface of Tokyo’s Sumida River, a question he’s symbolically remedied with a sleek vessel that unzips the middle of the waterway. Suzuki’s “Zip-Fastener Ship” mimics the ubiquitous closures as it separates the central river with a wake that splays out just like the teeth-lined tape.

Completed in 2004, the silver vessel grew out of an idea Suzuki had in 2002 after he watched a ship glide down the waterway while flying overhead. “The undertow of the boat, which travels back and forth between Azuma-bashi Bridge and Sakura-bashi Bridge, opened up the water like a zipper to connect the other side of the river,” he says. “(I hoped) that it would change the way we look at the city landscape.”

Suzuki began an annual launch on the Sumida in 2018 and plans to shift his focus to the water’s molecules in a future iteration, which you can follow on Instagram. (via Laughing Squid)

 

Art Design

Alex Chinneck Unzips a Condemned Building in the Style of a Retro Shirt

British sculptor Alex Chinneck has a history of manipulating facades—previously slumping the brick face of an apartment in Margate and completely upending a building in London. Chinneck’s newest monumental manipulation is a condemned office building in Kent, England. The 1960s structure seems to unzip from its middle with a XXXL zipper, revealing the ruin of the forgotten interior. Two folded segments near the top act like a collar, giving the entire installation the appearance of a retro polo shirt. Catch the soon-to-be-demolished intervention while you can: Open to the Public opened August 2 at Brundrett House, Tannery Lane, Ashfield, TN23 1PN. (via It’s Nice That and Dezeen)

Art

River Stones with Pouches Unzip to Reveal Hidden Scenes and Objects

Japanese artist Hirotoshi Ito’s sculptural works are a surreal contradiction of materials that seemingly shouldn’t exist, and yet here they are. The smooth stones of variable shape and size are each embedded with zippers that open to reveal hidden objects like collections of coins or marbles, while some of his more popular works incorporate a rather sinister toothy mouth. Ito finds the rocks in a riverbed near his home and works with the natural shape of each object to form the pouch and scene inside.

Ito had a solo show last month at Little High Gallery in Tokyo called “Mysterious Stone!” and you can see more of his ongoing stone carving work on Facebook.

 

Art Design

Wink Space: An Immersive Kaleidoscopic Mirror Tunnel Inside a Shipping Container

For the 2013 KOBE Biennale, artists and designers were invited to create environments inside industrial shipping containers as part of the “Art in a Container International Competition.” Designers Masakazu Shirane and Saya Miyazaki created Wink Space, a modular installation made from mirrors that formed a giant kaleidoscopic tunnel. Not only was the piece a fun immersive environment, but it was also an experiment in building with zippers. “We wanted to create the world’s first zipper architecture. In other words, this polyhedron is completely connected by zippers. And in order to facilitate even more radical change some of the surfaces open and close like windows,” says Shirane.

Wink Space was a winner of the A’Design Award.

 

Art

Unzipping Public Spaces One Giant Zipper at a Time

For the last few years Japanese artist Jun Kitagawa has been installing these giant zippers in public locations around Japan. The 2D and 3D artworks have appeared in buildings, on walls, and even in public ponds, revealing a peek of what lies just below the surface. You can see more over on his blog.

Surprisingly, Kitagawa is not the only artist in Japan working with zippers in public spaces. Artist Yasuhiro Suzuki conceived of a zipper boat back in 2004. The vessel takes advantage of the wake behind the boat to make it look like a giant zipper is unzipping the water. (via Spoon and Tamago)