Stemming from the French philosopher Emmanuel Levinas, I am inspired by the idea that we are constantly responsible for facing the Other. The Other is a term that encapsulates the idea that everyone (and potentially every living thing outside of humans) is different. Facing the other allows society to view the beauty in our differences and acknowledge them- become responsible for them. 

During a semester-long project in a Visual Systems class, I questioned how I could create a visual system that explores and creates a bonding tension by interacting with the philosophical idea of the Other.

I accomplished this by incorporating ceramics and design to create a large and interconnected sculpture of different-sized bowls that have illustrations of anchor points and handles that would be present in a vector-based digital illustration. The anchor points and handles will be screen printed on the ceramic sculpture to insinuate the sculpture is a “vector-based image” that can grow forever. We, as humans, are anchor points that connect our paths with other humans. Our handles determine where our paths take us and how far these paths will grow, thus, how deeply our relationships with other people run and build on each other.

The sculpture invites people to interact and eat together. The arrangement of the bowls forces an interaction between people to navigate eating- a normalized human ritual- with more thought and compassion.