Using old bicycle parts that she salvages from scrap metal yards and bike shop dumpsters, Carolina Fontoura Alzaga creates these incredible bicycle chain chandeliers.
The chandeliers form a series called CONNECT, which “addresses class codes, power dynamics, reclaimed agency, and ecological responsibility. The traditional chandelier is seen as a bourgeois commodity, a cachet of affluence, excess, and as such power. The recycled bicycle parts become a representation of the dismissed, invisible, and powerless, but are also an affirmation of self-propelled movement. The bicycle chandelier thereby creates a new third meaning of reclaimed agency.”
Carolina was recently featured on The Etsy Blog along with this 3 minute long film called Handmade Portraits: Chain Reaction about her art and its meaning. You can purchase one of Carolina’s handmade chandeliers from her Etsy shop.
