2016 Honorable Mention – Jesse Adler

Sole Survival

People who smoke cigarettes, never seem to consider the long term effects of their actions. The inspiration behind my piece, “Sole Survival,” was the ignorance of smokers. I am passionate about science as well as fashion. Often, I like to create pieces that draw inspiration from atypical places, and represent them in a direct and conspicuous way. That was my goal with this piece.

Shoes are a necessity that most of the time no one thinks about. But what if, for some reason, you weren’t able to wear shoes anymore? What if you were forced to walk around campus barefoot? What if you lost the ability to wear shoes because of something self inflicted? What about your lungs? Our lives depend on the successful functioning of our lungs, yet we seldom stop to think about their importance. Because of this, some individuals forget that smoking cigarettes will permanently damage their lungs. And once the lungs are ruined, one’s life drastically changes forever.

It was my aim to model the utter ugliness of a tobacco infected lung,  in contrast to a healthy lung. To do this, I recovered a pair of shoes to resemble lungs. The healthy lung is bright pink and spongey, with ample room for successful gas exchange. The bronchioles are shown by the tubes containing the red and blue liquids. Blue representing the deoxygenated blood and red for oxygenated. The affected shoe is a stark contrast to the healthy lung. This lung is blackened due to the deposited carbon, and the white/yellow areas around the bronchial tubes are cancerous tissue. The bronchioles have become inflamed and clogged with mucus as can be seen by the dullness of the liquid. Even if one does not understand the biological effects of smoking, it is obvious that something is not right with this lung. My goal with this piece was to impact those who don’t consider the long term effects of smoking. If you think this is one ugly shoe, imagine how ugly a smoker’s lung must be!