2024/04/07 Made bubble cyanotypes with children in New York

I went on a trip to New York during the Easter break. I noticed that time moves differently in New York, London and my home country, Japan. Specifically, New York is very fast and chaotic. London is deep and doldrums. The way time flows in Tokyo, Japan, feels normal to me as it is where I spent most of my time.

The famous Japanese designer Michio Akita said in his book that value is two articles of distance. I wanted to use the fact that I am in a different land to enhance the value of my work. I decided that cyanotypes would be an effective way to document the emotions and the passage of time in the land I am in. This is because the New York trip was only a week long and difficult to record using uninformed methods. Cyanotyping, on the other hand, can be done in a short time, as I acquired the skills while in London. And I bought cyanotype liquids locally.

During my trip to New York, I was able to make new discoveries about the material foam, which I had decided on in Part 3. I felt that the delicate material of foam can capture the flow of time and the local environment (wind, intensity of sunlight). Depending on the strength of the local wind, the time it takes for the bubbles to disappear differs, and the shape of the cyanotype differs. Bubbles can never be the same twice. It is possible to visualize the natural state of the land.

Further discoveries were made by moving from place to place within New York. I went to Connecticut, an hour away from New York, and did cyanotypes in a square. Then, the children gathered, and they wanted to make one, too. Cyanotypes are easy and anyone can do them. At that time, I did not envisage blowing bubbles for others, and I did not have a kit for making bubbles. As a result, unfortunately, I could not make them blow bubbles. They controlled the bubbles I blew themselves, and their cyanotypes were created.

After this experience, I felt that it would be interesting to try to create a work of art of bubbles made by someone other than me blowing on them. It would be like recording the lives of many people.

Reflection

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