Artist Derick Melander creates large, impressive art installations with meticulously folded and formed pieces of used clothing.

The one below is called “Drift” and was created for the No Waste/Zero Waste exhibit at Columbia College in Chicago in 2011. The exhibit promoted “awareness about the temporal nature of fashion,” and helped “to produce sustainable design opportunities that can bring some balance to the system.”

“Drift” stands 8.5 feet tall and is 17 feet long. It’s made from 5000 lbs of second-hand clothing. It was so heavy that the gallery floor had to be reinforced from the basement. It took four days and 50 people to assemble. Its design is reminiscent of a snow drift.

In his Derick’s own words, “I create large geometric configurations from carefully folded and stacked second-hand clothing. These structures take the form of wedges, columns and walls, typically weighing between five hundred pounds and two tons. Larger works are often site-responsive, creating discrete environments.

As clothing wears, fades, stains and stretches, it becomes an intimate record of our physical presence. It traces the edge of the body, defining the boundary between the self and the outside world.

The clothing used for these works is folded to precise dimensions with careful attention paid to the ordering of the garments. The sequencing can relate to the way clothing is layered on the body, it can be sorted by color, by gender or by the order that it was received. Individual components are sometimes connected together with shirt sleeves, pant legs and belts, creating bridge-like formations. Through these processes, I hope to engage the viewer and communicate the emotional resonance of second hand clothing.

For me, the process of folding and stacking the individual garments adds a layer of meaning to the finished piece. When I come across a dress with a hand-sewn repair or a coat with a name written inside the collar, the work starts to feel like a collective portrait. As the layers of clothing accumulate, the individual garments are compressed into a single mass, a symbolic gesture that explores the conflicted space between society and the individual, a space that is ceaselessly broken and re-constituted.”

The installation below is made of nearly 3000 individual pieces of used clothing and weighs nearly 2000 lbs. It stands seven feet tall, and the “s” curve snakes along for fourteen feet.

It is entitled, “The Ocean is the Underlying Basis for Every Wave” and was created by Derick Melander in 2008

You can learn more about the artist and see more of his work here: http://derickmelander.tumblr.com/