Hannah Levy's Adaptive Structures | Art21 "New York Close Up"

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- I think a lot about
the term body anxiety.

I think about sitting
in the backseat of a car

as a kid in like shorts, right?

And you get up and like your
leg just sticks to the vinyl.

Knowing that there's something about you

that might appear gross

to others is a pretty universal feeling.

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We're all like moving
around in these flesh cages

that are essentially vulnerable.

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A lot of the processes I
use in the studio are things

that exist, but also I kind of made up,

or I'm not using them exactly

the way that you're supposed to.

I do a lot of grinding metal
and welding it together

and grinding it again,

and a lot of that is
to avoid casting metal,

which is usually very expensive.

I'm often figuring out a new method

of what's often a very traditional process

and in that way I think of myself

as kind of a professional amateur.

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I can remember being in middle
school, maybe even younger,

like 10 or 11,

and finding a book that my mom
had that was like a history

of chair design.

I would kind of go through it

and mark all the pages with
pictures that I was into

and you know, my parents noticed that

and got me a couple other chair books.

I became more interested
in modernist design

and through that started
working in mostly tubular steel.

It's a industrial material that's become

so ubiquitous, it's almost invisible.

A lot of the time when I
start with a sculpture,

I'm thinking about something
organic, interacting

with something that
looks kind of industrial,

something soft and something hard.

I like that when something
looks like it's being pushed

or pulled or squeezed in a sculpture,

that really is what's happening.

The silicone is being pushed or pulled

or squeezed in those directions.

- So the hottest part

is that tip,
- Yeah.

- Right.

So I think if we, if
we come in straight up

and down, you're definitely gonna get

that hot bit's gonna really like-

- Okay.
- Droop over

- the more droop the better.
- Whereas... yeah.

- I've also started working in glass.

The main difference is that
it's kind of frozen in time.

In that moment of the
sag or flop or squeeze.

My attraction to the gourds
initially really came

from their like kind of
unique warty texture.

It's rare to see fruit

or vegetable just come out of the earth

and already have this kind of diseased,

almost tumor like look.

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For these pieces

I was really thinking
about adaptive structures

that we may or may not be aware of,

but are very ubiquitous
in the built environment.

I was playing off of the handrails

that exist in a staircase

or might be the kind of ADA handrails

that are in a bathroom.

Most of my work comes from

two or three different
reference points for me.

I was looking at Hector Guimard's

Paris train station streetlights.

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And I was also looking at the hoyer lifts

that you would use to lift someone

who might be bedbound
from a bed to a chair.

I think with these objects
there's this kind of knowledge

that if they're not something that

you require in your life now to be mobile,

you will at some point.

So we all have this
relationship to them that is one

of kind of inevitability
to a certain degree.

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My dad had ALS, which is a disease where

you slowly become completely paralyzed,

and so watching that progression happen,

these adaptive elements went
from barely noticed parts

of the built environment to, you know,

really necessary elements to move around.

To me, there's this very visceral moment

that can lead itself to
this kind of sculptural

way of thinking around the
way that a body interacts

with the furniture and its environment.

These stilt sculptures,

they suggest a wearer
who's essentially balanced

on these very precarious
looking bird legs.

Navigating these equally dramatic

and difficult to use handrails.

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A lot of the pieces that
I make, they are objects

that we are all familiar with,

but maybe out of context
you take something

that is really familiar

and make it kind of visible again.

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