Minion-ment

The Minion-ment

Inspiration

We were inspired by one of the most significant contributions to 21st-century pop culture: the Minions move. We wanted to build a commemoration of this character from the Minions movie that represents the unity between all the different cultures in the world. The language of this character, Minionese, is a mixing pot of diverse languages from all around the world, including Chinese, Korean, Spanish, French, Indonesian, and so much more.

What it does

The piece of art celebrates the childhood imagination and joy that the Despicable Me franchise brought to society. When Minions: Rise of Gru came out, many media outlets were surprised at the initial success at the box office. This was largely due to a large portion of the audience from the upper teens and young adults, who have joined together to support this franchise that has become a key part of Generation-Z's childhood, even starting popular memes on TikTok, including the Gentleminion trend. Minions: Rise of Gru represents this phenomenon of how digital media in entertainment can strongly impact and unite a generation, with many more to come.

How we built it

We worked hard to create this life-size minion with cardboard, paper mache, and acrylic paint.

Challenges we ran into

Some challenges we faced are the initial shaping and main design, especially concerning the circular shape of the Minion's body and head. However, we faced this challenge by trying many different designs with cardboard until we found the shape that fit our vision.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are so proud that we worked together cohesively with good time management to successfully create this "Minion-ment" monument. We worked hard to create this sculpture with cardboard and paper mache for hours, getting the right shape and sitting on Tech Green, waiting for the foundation to dry. We then spent even more hours, painting our Minion to the finest details. We are ecstatic at how our Minion monument turned out.

What we learned

We learned a lot about the difficulties of working with cardboard and paper mache and how to overcome these difficulties. We also learned a lot about how to have the endurance to stay detail-oriented, working on this life-size project on a time crunch.