“˜Bodyworks’ exhibit joins architecture with anatomy

  JENNIFER YUEN/Daily Bruin Senior Staff "Bodyworks," an
exhibit by designers Ila Berman and Michelle Fornabai, is free and
open to the public in Perloff Hall until June 6.

By Sophia Whang
Daily Bruin Contributor

When designers Ila Berman and Michelle Fornabai look in the
mirror, they see something more than their reflections; they see
inspiration.

In the “Bodyworks” exhibit, hosted by the UCLA
Department of Architecture and Urban Design, Berman and Fornabai
integrate architecture with the human form. The exhibit, on display
in Perloff Hall until June 6, is free to the public.

The two artists opened the exhibit with a gallery talk Wednesday
night, explaining how their art simultaneously encompasses both the
terrain of the outer and inner world of the body.

The exhibit showcases this relationship between the body and the
outside world through bodymap images and three-dimensional
sculptures, or bodyworks, that move away from conventional
structures.

The artists believe the human form provides an animate frame for
structures through ergonomics, the applied science of designing
useful objects to increase the safety and efficiency of the
interaction between people and things.

To create a sense of space in their pieces, the artists
transform the architectural frame of the designs by molding,
layering and laminating the works and weaving in wood, metal and
plastics.

  JENNIFER YUEN/Daily Bruin Senior Staff "Bodyworks" are
sculpted objects made of plastic and wood. The exhibit houses one
sculpture from Berman and Fornabai’s “Fold
Series.” The sculpture consists of two parallel-running
laminated mahogany boards intricately woven together with binder
clips and wires. The formation of the binder clips resembles a
human vertebrae and the position of the sculpture appears like a
reclining body.

The animation of the sculpture is revealed in an accompanying
“bodymap,” a picture that traces the bodily movement.
The map compares various points on the sculpture to points on a
human body in motion.

With the aid of the map, the sculpture seems to take up an
incredible amount of space and viewers can imagine movement within
its boards. The thin wooden planks can be viewed as a body with
mahogany skin; its folds cascading sinuously, resembling human
flesh, folding over when in the same position.

Two side-by-side sculptures from the “Imprint
Series” add even more life to the exhibit. One consists of
stone-like plastic and the other is made of wood, striped with
lines in different hues of brown.

Both sculptures have landscape-like qualities, containing images
of rolling hills in their curves. They resemble a sitting body bent
over, projecting a sense of body mass, movement and the sensual,
seamless contours of a knee or a thigh.

An “Interference Screen” also stands in the
gallery.

It consists of a series of parallel acrylic bands, heated to a
malleable state to produce interweaving loops and bands. The
illusion of movement in the piece is produced through its
overlapping waves. The sculpture’s slanting bands resemble a
standing body.

The exhibit creatively shows the relationship between the human
body and architecture. The outer world is revealed through the
semblance of rolling, continuous landscapes and the inner world is
revealed through the depiction of the physical body within the
material or landscape.

The creators of “Bodyworks,” miraculously give
inanimate objects life, movement and a certain seductiveness from
the suggestion of human curves. The exhibit gives viewers an
appreciation for the art as well as the interweaving worlds of body
and terrain.

ART: “Bodyworks” is on display at
Perloff 1318 through June 6. Gallery hours are Monday through
Friday, 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. For information, call (310) 267-4704,
or visit www.aud.ucla.edu.