Alice Hope is an artist in residence at the Museum of Art and Design.  Her most current project is on display at the Museum of Art and Design.  Bonnie Yu and Sydnie Kupferberg, two teen reviewers, got the chance to sit down with Hope for an interview.

Bonnie and Sydnie: Hi Alice, thank you for sitting down with us for this interview!

Alice Hope: Sure, no problem.

U: Where did you grow up?

A: Hong Kong, but I came to the U.S. 18 years ago, drawn to New York because of the art scene.

U: When did you start creating tab art?

A: I was at an art residency a year and a half ago. I was working in an entirely different project and the town I was at because of the residency had a recycling center and I was given a tour there and that’s where I stumbled upon the tabs. I wasn’t looking for tabs and I certainly wasn’t intending to make a project surrounding tabs but the aesthetic experience of the encounter of it was so powerful that it stopped me.

U: Prior to tabs did you do art in other mediums?

A: Yes you can go to my website http://alicehope.com/ and see some, I did a lot of work with magnets. Using magnets not only as the element but also as the subject matter. I was also interested in creating a measurable magnetic field, so I have some apps on my iPhone that can measure that.

U: Is there a reason that you chose to use all silver tabs instead of putting color?

A: For this particular project I used silver tabs exclusively, but in my previous work I have used tabs of color and from different cans.  I’m using the silver tab because I find it to be the most iconic, and I’ve been using this silver color because it’s very reflective of light to a state where you can’t even recognize it as a tab anymore and I really like that transformative quality.

U: Do you ever do collaborations?

A: I haven’t done collaborations in a long time but I am interested in collaborating. I’m working on building some connections but nothing has come through lately.

U: Who are your inspirations?

A: Tara Donovan,etc and just amazing makers like the ones showcased in the new show here, new territories.

U: What is your favorite breakfast food?

A: Uh, probably a bowl of broccoli with garlic… I like salty foods in the morning.

U: How would you explain can tabs to the uninformed? What’s the significance?

A: I feel like the can tab is like the radical. The can tab is very mundane and simple-you find it on the sidewalk, you throw it out. but it really speaks to me that everyone has had experiences with can tabs. All of these tabs before me come from cans that were once opened. and there’s a small pop when that can opens and it fizzes. Imagine if in the city right now everyone opened a can. it would have a significant impact. Can tabs are not only evidence of people drinking. it’s evidence of people collecting so that it ended up in the box that I was able to acquire. It’s sort of like a charity but a blind charity not knowing where it goes in the recycling plant.

U: Can you elaborate on what you mean by the tabs are personal to everyone?

A: the shape of the can tab I think was designed almost as a mechanical thumb. it’s personal in the way it makes contact with the individual and in the can tabs that I work with a here are thousands of fingerprints so there’s this personal concept of the individual that touched it from all walks of life. And it’s also personal because people all over the world have opened up a can some time in their lives.

U: How do you start a project? How do you figure out what form it’s going to take and how long it’s going to be?

A: I just go for it. I play with the material and get it to tell me how to start. My job is to figure out the most attractive way to work with the material and make it appealing and arrange it in a beautiful way.  So there’s a lot of experimentation.

U: Have you ever had any negative reactions to your work?

A: Someone the other day had a reaction to the impermanence. My art is installed and then when I move it, it shifts form. And they thought that art should be permanent and that I should make a new piece for each experience.

U: Would you ever consider gluing it to make it permanent?

A: No… maybe in the future but for now I want malleability I want that sort of flexibility and even though it’s going to look different the way I set it up next week, it’s going to look like it came from the same genetic family

U: Who’s your target audience?

A: I don’t have a specific audience as I said before my work is related to everyone I think that different people bring different experiences to it.

U: What do you want art viewers to gain from your work?

A: I want to offer an alive aesthetic experience that will evolve for viewers. I want their memory of the work to differ from when they come back to see the work. I want to provide a context for conversation to happen.