Persevering Face

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Purpose
Visually explore how a cute aesthetic can communicate serious messages. In this case, can an emoji convey a complex feeling such as grief?

I’d recently lost someone close to me, and I wanted to invite others into my experience with grief. I chose “persevering face” for its subjective label and translated it into a selection of characters based on a study of my texting patterns. I then recreated the ascii portrait at an uncomfortably large scale. In doing so, the piece elicits a mix of emotions and activates a nonsensical dialogue in the viewer's mind.  

Form
A 6'x6' mosaic made of laser cut plywood and paper. The design was generated with a mix of Javascript and manual typesetting.

Results
Featured in the “MFA Show 2015” at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago & “Entrainment” with the Voyeur Theatre Collective.