Client: Dave Navarro

Overview

Conceived & built in collaboration with Dave Navarro and PADHiA, of Duel Diagnosis. Fabricated from reclaimed car body panels and an internal steel frame, the structure is engineered in three modular pieces, allowing for transportation from site to site without major heavy equipment. The structure is 10 feet tall fully assembled and is symbolic of the way that we are made up of traumatic experiences and how that can create an identity. Lets Go For A Ride is constructed from car body panels that were in car accidents and are now repurposed in this art to create something beautiful from their wreckage.

Goals

Dave Navarro had been collecting these car panels for years and had a vision to create a sculpture from these pieces for a long time. He and had came to me searching for a strong designer and engineer for bringing his vision to life. We had 2 weeks to complete the project, so I had to nail it on the first try in order to have it ready for exhibition and it made on this super short build schedule.

Process

Dave Navarro and his team had contacted me with a photoshopped sketch of the final vision of the car body parts and then I had the challenge of engineering of something both imposing, yet transportable. So I had developed the idea of designing the sculpture it to be hollow and the whole piece is built as one large triangular truss so that can be broken into lighter components for transport and then easily reconstructed for display. It made the physical footprint of the piece much larger than the mass that it actually is. Yet, it feels as if the whole thing is made of solid metal. There is still this maximization of visual impact and while still saving on materials and weight.