As the population of the world grows and our cities become ever more crowded, the individual differences between us risk being lost. In a unique exploration of urban density, Japanese artist Katsumi Hayakawa builds extremely detailed and intricate cities that, constructed of paper cutouts, seem to even float. At first glance each highrise in these cityscapes appears to be ghostly white and uniform, but a closer look reveals that each, in fact, is unique, set apart by minute details as well as imperfections. (The installations are, after all, handmade.) Hayakawa’s Void and Solid hopes to highlight the problem of homogeneity in our society before everything ends up looking the same.
The gallery description reads:
Katsumi Hayakawa explores diverse notions related to space and perspective. His architectural sculptures made out of varying paper densities represent the man-made structures that cover the earth’s surface, through which man(kind) loses sight of himself. These architectural, urban conglomerations have progressively become more uniform and compact and are testament to a solidification process that is slowly squeezing humanity out of the picture.
See more of Hayakawa’s amazing paper-cut cities below, and an interesting documentary that explores how he designs these compelling sculptures:
