“I was inspired to use the pillow shape because it’s an object that is so common, yet as humans, we all have a special relationship to, without realizing it…A pillow is something every human can recognize and long for when needing rest. It represents comfort, rest, and sleep for our mind, body, and soul.” — Roberts, COLOSSAL

How cool is this? Los Angeles-based artist Colin Roberts began creating pillows out of perspex, or plexiglass, in 2008. The imitations of soft and plush objects using dented and bent pieces of plexiglass presents an illusion of softness despite its stiff composition. The fragmented pieces of glass fracture light in all different directions and reflect light in all different shades, kind of turning the pillow sculpture into a disco ball too. You can see more of his pillow sculptures on his Instagram.

This grabbed my attention because my group for the public intervention project plans to use plexiglass as the main conduit for communication in an interactive intervention. By using fragmented pieces of glass, we could rely on natural light to light it up rather than embedding LED lights, which could be costly and energy-inefficient.

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