Laika
Title: Laika
Measurements: 10 by 13 in
Medium: cardboard, cardstock, acrylic paint
Completed: October 2021
Laika is a model of Sputnik 2, the ship that carried the famous dog Laika to space on a suicide mission. This model is meant to leave the viewer with questions, and to display the fear that Laika felt. It has a feeling of emptiness due to the lack of the presence of the dog in the model. It is intentionally beat up and burned to replicate the failed mission and the tragic loss of the dog who never knew love. This piece protests testing on animals and also serves as a tribute to Laika.
Measurements: 10 by 13 in
Medium: cardboard, cardstock, acrylic paint
Completed: October 2021
Laika is a model of Sputnik 2, the ship that carried the famous dog Laika to space on a suicide mission. This model is meant to leave the viewer with questions, and to display the fear that Laika felt. It has a feeling of emptiness due to the lack of the presence of the dog in the model. It is intentionally beat up and burned to replicate the failed mission and the tragic loss of the dog who never knew love. This piece protests testing on animals and also serves as a tribute to Laika.
Inspiration
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My inspiration is Sputnik 2, the shuttle that carried Laika to orbit the earth in November of 1957. The mission was to get Laika to orbit the earth. It was a somewhat competitive time, because the Soviets and the US were competing to be the most advanced country in space travel. This prevented the mission from being as cautious as it could have been, because they were on a time crunch. Laika was a stray dog picked up off of the streets of Russia, and therefore never had a family or knew love. She was launched into space with no room to move around in her shuttle, with a waste bag attached to her and gelatin she had been trained to eat. She had heart and blood monitors surgically implanted in her and her heart rate tripled in space due to the stress she was experiencing. She survived the launch, but after a few hours the heat control in the shuttle failed and she died a slow and lonely death. The Soviets didn't release the true cause of her death until much later, and everyone was under the impression that she had been euthanized in space, which had been the plan, because they hadn't come up with a way to have the shuttle return to earth.
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Planning/Experimentation
My planning for this project was all over the place. At first I was set on doing a painting, because paintings are what I'm comfortable and most skilled at doing. However, I realized a painting wouldn't be enough to capture what I wanted to show. I want the viewer to feel what Laika felt. I had planned to do a collage sort of painting with scattered images of Laika and what she was seeing and feeling while in space. I had even started painting it, beginning with flames in the bottom corner and a horror-struck eye. But as I was painting it I realized I wasn't feeling anything while making it, and I didn't want to keep going. So I changed my idea to focus not on Laika, but the absence of her. This is when I got the idea for the model. The space where Laika was seated in Sputnik 2 was relatively open, so I could make it look empty without the dog in it. I wanted to depict the tragedy of Laika's story, so I decided I would have to portray that on the model and destroy it somehow, to make the viewer wonder what had happened.
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To plan out this model I started by sketching pictures I had collected of Laika in the shuttle. I decided to use mostly cardboard because I am familiar with it. I am relatively inexperienced with sculpture making, so I wanted to use a material I knew how to manipulate. I studied the structure of the shuttle to ensure that I was making it correctly. I also decided to destroy it by starting a corner of it on fire, which I would have to experiment with to make sure I was doing it right, because I didn't want to burn the whole things.
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Process
The base of the model was cardboard. I started with a box that I cut a space out of which would serve as the space that Laika would've sat. I ended up making the space bigger to amplify the emptiness of the ship and the absence of Laika. To hold pieces together, I used hot glue, because it would not melt away or fall apart when I poured water on it after burning the finished product. I measured and cut cardboard to glue in place and box in the remaining top of the box. The result wasn't precise, but it didn't need to be - I would cover the whole base layer with construction paper later on.
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I rolled up cardboard strips and glued them together to make a strong base that would hold up the floor of the seat. I attached these to the bottom of folded cardboard pieces that measured to fit inside the perimeter of the seat.
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Next I glued a toilet paper roll to the top of the box to serve as an extended part of the shuttle. I began gluing gray cardstock around the model. This matched the gray color of the shuttle and would make it look more realistic. I also had border pieces that I painted silver and glued around the edges, to give the model a shiny look, which cannot be attained with paper alone. This was a way to give it a more artistic look while still representing the shine of the Sputnik 2 shuttle.
I covered the exterior of the box with gray cardstock. Cardstock is sturdier than construction paper, and also smoother in appearance, which would make it look more like metal and make it take longer to burn. I was originally going to use construction paper; I'm glad I decided against it. I attached the cardstock with hot glue. This was so it wouldn't dissolve like a glue stick would in water, and I knew it would get wet when I put out the fire when burning it. The Sputnik 2 model has two holes on either side that hold important parts of the ship. I cut these holes into my model by using a toilet paper roll as a size reference. I traced the circle onto the model, and then i stabbed the center with a scissors and carefully cut the cardboard away to leave two holes. This was where I would put wires to stick out in every direction to give the project a technological aspect; because it was supposed to represent a man made ship.
Now I had to focus on add-ons to the project to make it look as realistic as possible. One of them was borders around the model to make it look man made. On Sputnik 2, there are lines of metal where the pieces are screwed into place. Rather than adding screws, I replicated this by painting strips of cardboard silver and placing them symmetrically around the model. This gave it an artistic look, but kept it's intended form as a shuttle.
There is a contraption on the front of the model that had the legs that make the shuttle able to stand up. Since my model is a box that already sits on the floor, I used leftover cardboard strips from the border to make short legs that ended where the box met the floor. I attached this contraption to two "knobs" made by cutting up a toilet paper roll, painting it silver, and gluing cardboard in it to prevent the circles from collapsing. I repeated this process with even smaller circles which I attached to the first circles. Unfortunately, this long process ended up not being with it, because I didn't like how unsupported the legs looked, so I removed them. Later, when I burned the piece, I ended up burning these pieces that I had worked so hard to make. Luckily this did not ruin the project in any way.
I was stuck for a while on what I would use as the wires that woulds come out of the holes on either side, but the idea came to me when I noticed the paper handles on some gift bags I had laying around from my birthday. They were a good width and I could paint them black, so I removed them from the bags and painted them all to serve as black wires. I didn't attach these until after I finished burning the project, because I didn't want them all to catch on fire.
There is a contraption on the front of the model that had the legs that make the shuttle able to stand up. Since my model is a box that already sits on the floor, I used leftover cardboard strips from the border to make short legs that ended where the box met the floor. I attached this contraption to two "knobs" made by cutting up a toilet paper roll, painting it silver, and gluing cardboard in it to prevent the circles from collapsing. I repeated this process with even smaller circles which I attached to the first circles. Unfortunately, this long process ended up not being with it, because I didn't like how unsupported the legs looked, so I removed them. Later, when I burned the piece, I ended up burning these pieces that I had worked so hard to make. Luckily this did not ruin the project in any way.
I was stuck for a while on what I would use as the wires that woulds come out of the holes on either side, but the idea came to me when I noticed the paper handles on some gift bags I had laying around from my birthday. They were a good width and I could paint them black, so I removed them from the bags and painted them all to serve as black wires. I didn't attach these until after I finished burning the project, because I didn't want them all to catch on fire.
Burning the model would have to be done strategically. I was going to use matches, not realizing that this would be a terrible idea, because I wouldn't have much control over the match, but I was given a tip to use a lighter, which I found much more effective. The burning was something I could only try once, there was no going back after I had started. I had someone take pictures of me doing it and kept my hose on and nearby so I could put out any flames that got too harsh. I started in the upper left hand corner, because I didn't like how the paper looked there and I could afford to let it burn away. Using the lighter, I was able to neatly burn the edges of the project, but it was a slow process, so I got some napkins and placed them on the model, then burned those, because they would catch fire quicker. After a minute or two I had a small fire going, and I would occasionally get it to catch onto other napkins to put it on other places of the project. Nearly all of the work I put into the very front of the model burned away before I was able to put the fire out, but I was impressed with how the burned pieces covered in silver paint looked. They turned out looking like real metal. After I put the fire out, I let the project cool outside, but it was raining and the model was already soaked in hose water, so I brought it in to dry.
After the burning, I only had a few finishing touches to add on. I glued in the wires, and I also used a combination of compressed charcoal and charred paper leftover from the fire to darken areas where the cardboard showed. This made it look more charred and like wreckage. I also experimented with hot glue on the edges of the border to look like melting metal. I painted the glue over with silver paint that matched the border. It ended up looking less realistic than I would've liked, but it also brought an aspect of creativity into the piece.
Compare and Contrast
Similarities
- Both have historical meaning. The reference image shows a real picture of the piece of Sputnik 2 where Laika sat, which was an important event in history, and my project is a recreation of that event - Both have an aspect of craft and design. Like my model, the real Sputnik 2 had a lot of work put into it, as well as the design and how it would support Laika. Much consideration was put into how it would handle space. My piece also had this aspect because I was trying to recreate a feeling what was in the model when Laika died. - Both have a space designed specifically for the dog to sit. For Sputnik 2, this was so that the dog could actually sit there, but for mine it was a representation of where she would have been. |
Differences
- My piece has an inner meaning that Sputnik 2 does not have. Sputnik 2 is very literal, because it is not meant as an art piece, it is simply meant to carry itself into space. Mine is made to convey my own anger towards the event that occurred as well as capture what Laika felt while she was in space. - My piece shows the aftermath of the mission, while the photograph shows the before. Both images put together tell a story in a way, but mine shows the after because it's a part of the story that isn't well known. There aren't photographs of Laika's body or even of the remains of the ship. - The photograph conveys a much more hopeful, innocent picture than what my piece does, which reveals a contrast in emotion. The reference photo simply shows a dog sitting in a spaceship, and it looks cute and hopeful. My piece shows a darker side of the story and leaves the viewer confused and shocked. |
Reflection
I am extremely proud of this piece. It was one of the most exciting art pieces to work on because it was something I am so passionate about. I am glad I made the decision to make a model instead of a painting, because it looks more real than a painting ever could. Doing this project opened a doorway to exploring other kinds of models and experimenting with strategical burning. I was wary to make something other than a painting for this project because I really wanted it to be eye catching and I am most skilled in painting. The one thing that I would do differently next time is the front part of the ship; I would have experimented with more ways to put it together and made sure not to burn it all away so much. I love all the different elements and mediums that went into this project; I used charcoal, paper, cardboard and paint to put it together, so I was constantly changing mediums and it kept the process exciting.
Bibliography
Dohrer, Elizabeth. “Laika the Dog & the First Animals in Space.” Space.com, Space, 31 May 2017, https://www.space.com/17764-laika-first-animals-in-space.html.