Cardboard Creations Make For Sprawling Installation

Featuring work from the Cardboard Institute of Technology artist collective, the San Francisco art and science museum is housing an intricate installation made almost entirely of reused cardboard. Aside from some electronic enhancements and the spare usage of wood as a skeletal structure in a few sections, the recycled universe is constructed solely with hot glue and box cutters. Imitating a tunnel-boring machine, the spiral construction turns constantly, with mini cardboard cities attached, hovering over a glowing blue lake. Cardboard ladders lead up to village huts, a cave contains shaman-esque figures huddled around a fire, a paddle wheel turns alongside the “WildCard Casino.” Wilson and six other members of CIT, a small collection of artists who band together to create these sprawling cardboard projects, began constructing with little forethought other than knowing the dimensions of the installation space. Ideally, the show seeks to inspire visitors “to go home and create their own worlds, to imagine their own new cities in their backyards or under their kitchen table or in their garage,” says Robyn Higdon, director of museum experience. To further encourage this, on the side of the exhibition is a station for visitors to craft cardboard constructions of their own, and the adjacent cafe will be adorned throughout the summer with new creations. The artists created the majority of the installation in three weeks in the Marin Headlands, then transported the pieces to the Exploratorium and rebuilt and constructed the final version there.