What’s inside an old optical mouse? How many pieces are they made from? How might they be reimagined? Cairo-based product designer dina A. Amin made a hobby from these questions, turning it into a delightful side project that she calls Tinker Friday. She writes:
Every Friday I pick a random “about to be thrown away” product (from my growing collection of donated e-waste). I disassemble it, rearrange it back into something else and make a stop motion animation story out of its parts. I’ve been doing this for almost 8 months now, and made over 20 videos. I like to show people what’s inside their products in an interesting way. I think we rarely see what’s inside a product so we treat it as one whole piece, and it makes it easier to discard things; we throw away one thing and not many! But there are many things inside… and many possibilities!
Amin is brilliant at transforming these normally unseen pieces into adorable characters and bite-sized stories. Click each Instagram video to watch:
A wooden framework and curved plastic pipes provide a solid structure for ‘knit’ bundles of wara or rice straw, the byproduct of the season’s rice harvest. As volunteers work together to tie and wrap the bundles into place, an oversized straw animal is revealed. It’s one of many specially designed sculptures created for the annual Wara Art Festival (わらアート) in Japan’s Niigata Prefecture. Spoon & Tamago provides some background:
The Wara Art Festival all started in 2006 when the local district reached out to Musashino Art University to seek guidance on transforming their abundant amount of rice straw into art. And in 2008, the very first Wara Art Festival was held. Since then, every year the school sends art students up to Niigata to assist in creating sculptures made out of rice straw. The festivities have ended but the sculptures are on display through October 31, 2017.
Geographer turned Software Engineer, looking to shape the invisible systems that guide our world. Professionally interested in mapping, data visualization, values-based programming, and STEAM evangelism. Personally interested in crochet, knitting, textiles, and archery.
