Kainalu Miskella
Underlit Plexiglass Kitchen
Class of: 2029
Major: Architectural Design BFA
Medium: Sculpture, plexiglass, LED strip lights, 3D Modeling, wood
Faculty: Carol Peligian
Prompt: Create a piece that incorporates or interacts with light and/or sound to address a space you want to reclaim that's important to you or a body part that is important. I chose the option about space as being in New York has been quite a shift from Hawai'i where I'm from. Prompt: Reclaiming a Space Create a piece that deals with the body. in a space that you once occupied and will now reclaim through sculpture. You may incorporate light and/or sound in your piece(s).
Being in New York has been very different from Hawai’i, especially since the dorms have very tight living quarters. I feel like light is a big part of why I don’t like my dorm, so I decided to design a kitchen space for where I would like to live in New York – a much more comfortable space with more light and space to bring people over. I originally wanted to use materials like wood and plastic stone to create a model of a kitchen, but the lighting element was limited. In our class discussion when the suggestion to make everything clear was brought up, I realized that this was so interesting because the light was what made the piece look the way it looked, not the colors and materials I used. I changed from the very detailed kitchen model to a simplified version with the plexi. I used plexiglass and LED lights as the medium and simplified the design of the actual piece to let the light shine (literally). I designed the pieces first on paper and then on Adobe Illustrator to be cut by Canal Plastics. The lights on the bottom end up shining only through the top edges of the plastic instead of the entire piece evenly.