Portable Cities: Architecture Created From Old Clothes

Chinese artist Yin Xiuzhen loves to travel. She especially loves to check out the architecture in the cities she visits. While she is there, she collects second hand clothes that have been discarded by the residents in that city.

Then, to symbolically recreate traveling to that city, she meticulously molds the clothes into exact replicas of her favorite buildings in each city. More simply put, she creates textile 3D cities out of old clothes. To make it all even more creative, she uses open suitcases as the base of each city.

Why suitcases? She explains, “When I began this series, I was constantly traveling. I saw the baggage conveyor at the baggage claim every time I traveled. Many people waited there. I was one of them. Since I always traveled with a huge suitcase, it felt like I was traveling with my home.” This collection, called Portable Cities, is an interesting group of art pieces. One of her most famous recreated cities is New York City, which she designed years ago. It includes a fabric World Trade Center.

[via weburbanist, odditycentral]