Where do you find used and relinquished keys? The answer is very simple, in trash can. Well, now if you want to see best use of thousand of abandoned keys into an art of beauty than you either need to head to Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art, Scottsdale , Arizona or you can quickly go through this article on the same. The artist cum architect team of Brian Ripel and Jean Shin have installed a two – part site specific installation with the help of thousands of abandoned keys. The first part of the Unlocking series is named as ‘Lost Vista’ and the second part is named as ‘Key Chain’. Both the pieces of art in fact a tribute to the Arizona landscape.
The duo found a whopping visual relationship between the rocky landscape of Arizona and the clefts and ridges of traditional brass keys, while researching the landscape and surrounding environs of Arizona. Taking cue from this similarity, these two pieces of contemporary art were designed. The first part, Lost Vista, embraces a dense collection of obsolete keys, embedded side ways in the installation order to reveal their cut edges. These keys embedded in sideways pattern, suggest various ridges and valleys of Arizona and immediately reminds visitors about the landscape of their native land. This model contains around 8,000 keys donated by individuals and local key cutting businesses. A three channel video installed for this sculpture allows room sized image of the keys to be projected on the walls, simulating the real landscape for visitors.
The second part was more inclusive in nature and was named as ‘Key Chain’. This sculpture tries to explore connection between individuals as determined by the keys. Each participant first had the key traced on their key ring and were then asked to share a the key with someone who was willing to join in. These shared keys form a linkage between a particular individual and the next one, in an ever burgeoning horizontal line of connections, invariably making a linear landscape of subtle valleys and ridges of Arizona. The first two keys in the sculpture are that of Shin and Ripel.
Via: Jean Shin