REWIND / DECAY
2018 November - 2019 March
In response to Art, Space and Nature programme field trip to Isle of Lewis and Harris
A cyclical essay with charcoal from burnt wood, found at Luskentyre beach (Outer Hebrides, Scotland), being ‘processed’ in one art work REWIND, then returned to the islands in new form, another work WE WILL ALWAYS DECAY (…THEN REGENERATE). Gradually, it will be blurred by the breeze from human movement. A process about accumulating, transforming, decaying and vanishing, and other things after that.
REWIND
Performance/Installation, Collected Items
(W:100cm, H:40cm)
"UMWELT", Tent Gallery, Edinburgh, UK
This work is an experiment of regressing to different stages of burning and showing the accumulation of time. It was presented as a process for 10 days in Tent Gallery, Edinburgh. Each day, a part of the burnt wood was chipped off. On the last day of exhibition, the original texture of the wood was revealed completely, and charcoal was placed beside as a visible record of time. The charcoal from burnt wood was then used as the material of next work which was exhibited in An Lanntair, Stornoway (Isle of Lewis, Outer Hebrides).
We tend to not notice time passing by because we are too familiar with it. Therefore, instead of creating anything new, I intend to address people’s attention by ‘reducing’. By cutting off the charcoal from a burnt wood, I raise a question about how to feel the mass/direction/speed of time. Burning is a process that could not actually be reversed, it’s fast and fierce. However, through the process of rewind, we might be able to put things back to peaceful status.
We Will Always Decay (...Then Regenerate)
Installation, Collected Items (Charcoal from REWIND)
(W:60cm, H:30cm)
"Testimony from the Rocks", An Lanntair, Stornoway, UK
The work is the second part of this project. It is a text piece made by grounded charcoal and placed on the gallery floor. It is a sculpture keep moving and vanishing, it differs at every second just like the water in a river, or the blood in our vein. After a while, it was blurred by the breeze from human movement. Then a part of it was sent back to Edinburgh, a part of it was swept into the bin, and a part of it was already spread in the air and floated to somewhere far. The question attached to it is “Where does everything go eventually?” I couldn’t know, because there is no end for the elements on earth. The text may turn invisible, but the charcoal carries on and become something else. For nothing can ever truly disappears.
I thought about this present moment, the next moment, and the next moment after that which will never stop. So we grow, mellow, decay, and then regenerate into something seems to be brand new.
關於時間
關於過程
關於每一刻之後都會遇到的下一刻
以及它的下一刻
還有永不停止的再下一刻
最初意欲延續REWIND 這個帶有時間性的作品，但從不同的角度趨近時間的「方向性」，倘若不倒轉，那麼就繼續進行到底吧。於是出現了對於「底」是什麼的探究，或許「底」是無止盡的消散，因為時間沒有終點，亦沒有起點。我想著在蘇格蘭西北離島上遇到的石楠花叢還有我撿拾的焦木，在我記憶的那一刻之後，或是倘若我沒有將焦木帶回城市作為展覽一天一天削去焦炭，那麼他們終將老去、腐化、分解。
石楠花會逐漸變灰然後埋藏在底層，成為新的年輕的花叢底下沈默的支撐者；它的衰退相對可見，所以被我見到了。這個發現變成作品中另一個重要的事情：regenerate。即使變灰或者變成塵土消失在眼中，沒有東西是會真正消失的，或許以不同型態出現，但總會繼續下一個旅程；如同作品做出來後，思想卻不會停止發展，或者作品撤下之後，有些部分遺留在島上，有些或許會回到愛丁堡的我手上，有些則隨著世界轉動不知去了何方。
