All Photos By Gail
I Could Have Been a Dolphin is a modern sculpture designed and realized by Arlo Walker in 2022. Consisting of a 65 -gallon, industrial-size trash bin completely covered with tiny reflecting crystals, this work was part of a larger exhibit of design student projects entitled Utopia, which was on display at the 2022 edition of Wanted Design at the International Contemporary Furniture Fair (ICFF). What follows is the manifesto presented with the exhibit to which this eye-catching sculpture belongs.
The title of this exhibition, Utopia, is an irony; each piece confronts, the realization that our civilization is anything but utopian. Indeed, the sociopolitical infrastructure of our world spells dystopia –- a place where the values of fulfillment, health, and wealth appear all but unattainable. The pieces in this exhibition reflect a disillusionment with the very concept of utopia; the past, present, and future equal equally convey an image of injustice and hardship.
Sculpture Detail
There’s a good reason for this in disenchantment; how can a society which has lived through the financial crisis, global warming, the rise of social media, the drug war, conflict in the Middle East, and the Covid pandemic –- among other phenomena –- possibly subscribe to the belief that our world reflects the state of perfection, as utopia suggest?
The works in this exhibition grapple with the devastation born of military conflict; the dangerous fascination with influencer culture; the progressive stratification of class through economic policy, the destruction of earth through mass-consumerism, and the pernicious nature of industrialism.
Like the objects of the radical design movement of the 1960s and 1970s from which these pieces take inspiration, these works do not aim to make utopia a future reality, but rather, acknowledge it as a forgone hope.
Still, they maintain the quintessential principle of challenging, traditional approaches to design. By transforming mundane objects into pieces begotten of kitsch, satire, and distortion, these artists challenge the homogeneity which mass consumerism demands. Though the ideal of utopian perfection may be dead, the possibility of something better for our world is not. The conscientiousness of these young artists suggests this potential.
Photographed as Part of Wanted Design at the ICFF NY in 2022