One man’s trash is another man’s treasure. Quite literally in this miniature scale tiki bar created entirely from repurposed materials and discarded objects.
The inspiration for this miniature comes from the dreamy south asian movie sets of James Bond: Dr. No and In The Mood for Love, combined with a love for 1960s style tiki bars. I use contemporary objects that would otherwise be thrown away to create a scene that might only exist in years past, a way to reimagine waste as an artistic medium.
The transformation of amazon boxes into beautiful wooden paneling, of rusted-out thumbtacks into martini glasses, of tissue paper into a dirty linoleum floor, and so on pushes the creative boundaries between art and garbage. I see this as a little jewelry box of junk.
List of items repurposed:
-Ikea box for structure and support
-Birkenstock box interior for tile pattern of back room
-onion netting for potato sack
-glass window protections for cork board
-candle dust protector for tabletops
-face lotion lids covered in FrangoMint wrapping paper and painted for stools
-Dried out, old erasers for candles
-Marin Montague tissue paper for linoleum floors
-discarded wooden trivet found in garbage for bar and back bar
-moldy chopstick for pillar
-moldy sushi roller for ceiling and sideboard
-Applewatch box for bar sink
-straw from juice box for sink pipe
-paint brush protectors for bar glass
-wrapping paper for wallpaper
-gold bag for bar back
-interior of Ikea cardboard for wine rack
-plastic from stencil remnants heated up and molded into bottle shapes for wine bottles and alcohol bottles
-cut up mold chopsticks for soda cans, covered in scraps of paper
-soy sauce fish for hanging ornament
-bells from cat collars for hanging ornaments with garlic and shallot netting
