Disturbia | Sugar Cube Installation (2009)

‘Disturbia’ (Disturbance in Suburbia) was a sugar cube Installation which consisted of 60,000 sugar cubes, painstakingly glued to a foam board, using a small paint brush dipped in Glucose. This was my acclaimed final project in Shenkar College of Art, Engineering & Design. The Project dealt with homophobia and verbal abuse and focused on the homophobic slurs that were thrown at me throughout my childhood, growing up in the suburbs. I took the 7 worst negative cuss words that haunted me and combined them with my favorite adjectives to create a new hybrid that began deconstructing the poisonous effect the cuss words had on my psyche. the positive words stayed intact while the slurs deteriorated. The format was 70cm on 100cm, the size of a standard European poster. Each piece contained a different typographic combination, made entirely out of sugar cubes, using a set grid. The 3D creation turned the typography into topography that in close inspection looked like abstract buildings and streets. The combinations repeated themselves, every duplicated slur deteriorated differently, and each of them laid on a tomb-like 50cm high white wooden crate, creating a graveyard-esque path the viewers could walk around and contemplate on the power words have on all of us.

Photography: Avraham Cornfeld / Gianfranco Azzaroccini