10FT
Richard Chang
10FT is a sculptural representation of a tree that has been created out of an extensive amount of disposable cups provided by the student body. Over a time span of three months these disposable cups were collected on the Ryerson University campus. At the end of each day the accumulation of cups would be washed and prepared for the cutting and gluing process.
After three months, the assemblage of cups eventually turned into a tree that bloomed to be an astounding ten feet tall by five feet wide, complete with branches and leaves. This sculptural tree is constructed with an internal frame made of recycled wood and pipe. Special cups have been placed around the tree, which have been signed by students who have participated in this project. The base of this sculptural tree is mounted on a three and a half meter circle filled with coffee beans.
Did you know that parts of your coffee cup cannot be recycled? Each day about one million paper coffee cups are sent by Torontonians to various landfills. Can you imagine the amount of cups that are used and disposed of each day by Ryerson faculty and students? Sending this amount of waste to landfill sites is obviously not an environmentally sustainable practice. I have retrieved hundreds of discarded coffee cups and fashioned them into a ten-foot tall sculpture of a tree. With this artwork, I hope to communicate and raise awareness about this problem and encourage a sense of personal responsibility for the wasted cups that are destroying natural beauty and damaging the environment.