Sasha Rapacz

Sasha Rapacz (He/Him/His)
Studio Art major, Music Performance minor

I am fascinated by our ability as humans to imbue inanimate objects with emotion and our desire to form bonds with the non-human. We endlessly manipulate the world around us, driven by desires for personal gain, curiosity, compassion or just carelessness. These works investigate person-to-object relationships through touch and exploration, in an attempt to examine empathy for the non-human.

I work in multimedia sculpture, but for this exploration, I attempted to work primarily, or almost entirely, from scavenged or junk materials in an effort to bring recognizable inanimate materials to life. I think there is something beautiful about life and art made from scrap materials. My hope is that by treating objects as entities worthy of empathy, viewers can reflect on a version of themselves that is not empathetic out of self-interest, but simply out of a genuine desire to be.