Translation of an ode, 2020

This is an on-going project which explores how we relate to the intersections of personal and global history in the digital era.

Centered is a bed made out of rice paper, a material that is both explicitly temporal and an ambiguous cultural fixture. A commodified symbol of the exotic and the oriental, that is transformed in this work to carry the impossibilities of dual-identity. It is paradoxical, creating a place that wants to be intimate but would crack, snap, and break in response to a body.

The images are experimentations with materials relating to the Opium Wars, and the imperial history of China in order to situate the contemporary ramifications of these historical events in the domestic world. These images are explicitly digital, containing reflections of flash and computer noise. I want to emphasize this condition of viewing that actively makes our surroundings feel strange. Emphasizing how the digital space has permeated and seeped into our perception, changing how we relate to our own history. 

The accompagnying text is a pseudo big-bang story, focusing on the meeting of two dynasties and the meeting of two lovers. The text is printed on water-soluable paper to reflect its political precarity and looming threat of surveillance.