Asif Farooq, Paper Weapons

A conversation with artist Asif Farooq whose Miami studio was an official featured site for Art Basel Miami Beach in December 2015 where he is making a paper airplane: a full scale model of a Soviet-era MIG-21 supersonic jet fighter engineered entirely from 4,000 pounds of paper and glue.

The concepts and politics of this project are discussed at length along with the astounding technical challenge of building such a replica out of paper.

Farooq grew up in a quiet Miami suburban middle-class home with his mother and father, an engineer, who migrated here from Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Coming next for Farooq: a group of associated ideas logically extending the concept including building a working particle accelerator and launching a satellite into Low Earth Orbit (LEO).


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