Droppers
In 1965, Gene and Jo Ann Bernofsky and Clark Richet, graduates from the University of Kansas established a settlement in Colorado that became known as ‘Drop City.’ They conceived of Drop City and its inhabitants, ‘Droppers’, as a space for artists, inventors, and free thinkers who wished to collectively celebrate creative experimentation and practice ways of living free from the conformities of mainstream life.
The Droppers built amazing dwellings inspired by the visionary ideas and geodesic domes of Buckminster Fuller. The domes were mainly improvised, and reliant on the use of salvaged materials that included car parts, waste ply and reclaimed timber and deviated from Fuller’s precise architectural vision, acting as kind of free-form mutation of Fullers ideals. Reflecting upon and practically inhabiting the Dropper’s approach to architectural problems formed the starting point of the project and ‘Droppers’ replicates this approach to improvise the reconstruction of a dome.
Ray & Webster's main interest was to produce a collaborative work that allowed for a reflection upon the Droppers approach to life and art and to consider how this might be relevant today and what might be the contemporary embodiment of this?
Droppers was shown at the Old School Room Project Space, Somerset, UK, as part of the OSR Projects Lobster Trap Commission 2016.