Nina Davis – United Kingdom

The World We Live In

Description

equilibrium: a state in which opposing forces or influences are balanced

My hat “THE WORLD WE LIVE IN”, is the fusion of millinery, philosophy and physics.
The hat combines light and darkness, good and evil, tranquillity and turmoil and the equilibrium in which they co-exist, which for me, represents the complexity of the world we live in.

The hat is made from bio-degradable but contrasting materials: paper, sinnamay and celluloid, which represent the contradictions and opposites of the world, as well as, the state of wonderment with which we look at it.

The black, uneven, sharp-edged geometrical structure of the dyed paper straws that are balanced on a sinamay base, stand in total opposite to the snow white, smooth roundness of the celluloid ping-pong balls and represent different views and opinions but, which put together, create the equilibrium of debate. The angular shapes symbolize people-created institutions whereas the balls represent the original shape of our earth. The odd number of heavy-on-the eye triangles and rectangles and the even number of feather-light balls (excluding the one held by my model which symbolises wonderment), complete the idea of the balance of opposites, which in my interpretation, represents equilibrium.

Materials

• recycled sinamay for base
• recycled giant straws
• millinery block
• dye (Oasis)
• glue
• needle/thread
• recycled celluloid ping-pong balls
• invisible elastic

Techniques

• blocked sinamay for base of hat
• bent straws into geometrical shapes
• glued shapes into one structure
• sewed the structure onto base
• dyed base and structure black
• glued balls onto the structure