Year Completed: 2026
Platform: Adobe Illustrator
Installation Concept
Everything But the Kitchen Sink is a conceptual interactive sculpture that challenges our assumptions about the relationship between form and function. The installation consists of an arrangement of metal sink faucets, plumbing pipes, and fixtures surrounding a central mixing bowl filled with water. Although the structure resembles a functioning plumbing system, the connections necessary to deliver water have been deliberately removed.
Visitors would be encouraged to touch, turn, and manipulate the faucets and fixtures, only to discover that none produces water. The water remains visible in the bowl below, physically present but disconnected from the mechanisms normally used to access it.
By removing the expected result, I wanted to transform a familiar domestic activity into an opportunity for experimentation. Visitors might turn handles, trace pipes, or investigate how different components move, even after realizing that their actions serve no conventional purpose. What would ordinarily be a practical interaction becomes a form of play.
I envision the sculpture in an indoor gallery, where its recognizable domestic elements contrast with the surrounding exhibition space. The installation would be explicitly touchable, encouraging visitors to explore the structure as though it were a small playground.
At its core, Everything But the Kitchen Sink asks what truly defines an object's function. Is a sink still a sink if it cannot deliver water? Does its purpose exist in its physical construction, our expectations, or the experience of interacting with it?
Rather than providing a definitive answer, I want the installation to reveal the often-overlooked relationships we have with everyday objects. By separating expected function from actual experience, the sculpture invites viewers to reconsider how usefulness, familiarity, and curiosity shape our interactions with the world around us.
Research & Inspiration
Everything But the Kitchen Sink emerged from my exploration of boundaries, particularly the relationship between what we expect an object to do and how we actually experience it. I became interested in how familiar objects shape our behavior and how changing their intended function might reveal unexpected relationships between people and their surroundings.
My research included artists Tanya Aguiñiga, Sophie Calle, Emmett Ramstad, Rachel Whiteread, and Chris Sugrue, whose work challenged conventional understandings of physical, personal, and conceptual boundaries. I was particularly drawn to Ramstad's transformation of ordinary bathtubs into unexpected spaces for play and Whiteread's exploration of the negative spaces beneath chairs. Both demonstrated how everyday objects carry meanings beyond their practical purposes.
These discoveries led me to develop the idea of a habitational function, borrowing from the mathematical concept of inputs and outputs. In this relationship, our expectations of an object serve as the input, the object itself becomes the function, and our actual experience of interacting with it becomes the output. Unlike a mathematical equation, however, the outcome is not always predictable.
I wanted to explore what happens when an object's expected function disappears. Would we continue interacting with it? Could something designed for a practical purpose become a source of curiosity, attachment, or play?