The Drone Project - A Participatory Memorial

Artist Joseph DeLappe announces the completion of a commissioned project by the Center for Creativity and the Arts as the Visiting Artist in Residence for 2014 at Fresno State University. DeLappe worked for 2+ weeks on campus with students, interns and local volunteers to create a full-to-scale sculptural reproduction of a MQ1 Predator drone. The work is a participatory memorial – constructed onsite and resulting in a final, performative event held on April 6th, to write the names of 334 civilian drone casualties from Pakistan upon the surface of the drone (written in English and Urdu) – the names were as well read aloud. The sculpture was created using a digital 3D file that was been processed using Pepakura Designer and adapted for large-scale construction using low-res polygons for yellow corrugated plastic. The work is currently on display on the Fresno State campus through May 31st.