Documentation

Firstly, I replaced the paper tape at the joints with aluminum wire to ensure the strength of the skeleton and tried to wrap the gaps in a dense array of raffia rope over the willow skeleton to achieve a similar shape to the “sutra pagodas” (pictured in the Critical Reflection) that originated from animal souls ritual cultures in the Ancient Zhang Zhung era.

I chose raffia because, like willow, it is a product of nature and brings me a sense of primitive simplicity. However, I have not completed the full wrap for now, just a rough look at the effect, and I wanted to finish the structure first.

Sketch #1

I first used willow in a workshop led by Sara on a Wednesday morning and learned that it could be made flexible by soaking it overnight, and in this state, I can bend it into the shape I want, secure the joint with paper tape and wait for it to dry and set. I thought of my dog, who had just left me, so I wanted to build a little tent for him, hoping he would be warm and happy in heaven. I did not weave very densely as each person was allocated a small amount of willow, so I built a cone-shaped skeleton structure with a 'little tail' at the top where the willow converges.

I tried to fit my head inside and stuck it at about shoulder level, and I suddenly found it amazing to look out of the woven space and see two worlds. My friend saw me doing this and lifted it as well, trying to place it on various parts of the body, pretending to grow a tail and alien arms, etc. Inspired by this series of actions and the Chinese custom of folding willows to commemorate the dead, I started to think about the possibility of weaving the willow into a body-integrated costume or prop, which would be very meaningful.

So I made a general sketch and started to weave the wearing part in willow. In the shape of the left half, I wanted it to have a kennel-like holding space, so it naturally evolved into something like a bulging skirt support during the weaving process. The two branches sticking out from the middle are like two arms trying to embrace something, trying to make contact and connect with something.

Although this piece appears as a garment, I have tried to give it a dynamic form, a kind of outward tension, not only as a garment to be worn but also as a living sculpture when it stands alone.

To improve the piece's wearability, I made an opening in the willow at about the shoulder for the arm to extend and tried it on to get a feel for the overall size and weight.

I realized that although the willow was not heavy, its inherent flexibility caused a degree of vibration due to the inertial effect when I walked or swayed in it, which forced me to slow down my movements, a very different experience for me as I often wear everyday clothing.

Sketch #2

This process also led me to the methodology of practice, where I cannot predict the result before I start but rather think about it and change the direction as I go along to make it more relevant to my state of mind at the time of creation.

Once I had roughly finished the left half of the shape, I felt that the wrap curves on this half were more extensive than I had expected, so I chose not to make the other half the same skirt support structure but to narrow the horizontal curves and focus the shape on the extension of the vertical curves, with a tendency to converge inwards at the waist, to cater for the embracing pose of the left half.

By this stage, my willow costume had almost taken shape structurally, and I then used a large amount of raffia to cover these skeletal hollows. As the spire-like 'little tail' structure left the ends of the raffia nowhere to be secured, I interspersed them in the willow slits, twisting them at varying lengths and then securing the ends in the weaves that eventually wrapped around the entire spire.

The half-moon section on the right side also leaves an opening for the arm to pass through for ease of wearing on the body and is otherwise covered with raffia.

Image taken in C136

During a tutorial with Leah, I talked to her about how I wanted to complete a piece performance in my willow costume to demonstrate a flashback experience I once had on a bus. She asked me if it was a dance, and I replied that I was still thinking about it.

I did not decide how I would do it specifically before the shooting because the flashback did not leave me with any memory of the content. I was just aware of the rewinding of time through the time display on the bus. It was a moment when my dog tried to connect with me in another world, and I decided to document my feelings about it through a performance. I allowed my body to move, rotate, rise, and fall as my emotions progressed to narrate the scene of seeing my dog again and separating again in a space utterly parallel to the inside of the bus.

I wrote a paragraph as a monologue for the film:

"Dreams, reality, death-on wave after wave."

Some say that after death, all dogs go to the planet Woof and line up for reincarnation
Each puppy holds a candle in his arms
One of the dogs had a candle that kept going out
Because his owner kept crying
He was waiting for someone
He couldn't be reincarnated

More than three months have passed
I still can't restrain my emotions very well
I still cry almost every night and can't sleep
I never dreamt of him
I guess maybe he didn't want to see me too sadly
So I forgot all the times I dreamt of him

Once I looked up on the bus to see the time
3:08 pm
But when I looked up again
3:05 pm
I suppose I had experienced a flashback
Only to have the memory erased
I felt somehow connected to his world in those three minutes

At the opening events of the last exhibition 'Forces of the Small'
I met an old gentleman
He had seen my work and said to me：
His dog had cancer and a big tumor in his nose
It made his nose look long and swollen
He didn't know how long his dog had left to live
But the dog didn't know he was ill
He was still jumping around happily every day
The old gentleman leaned close to my ear and whispered to me:
"We can't have puppies all our lives
but puppies have had us all their lives."

What does death mean to the living?
I think it's not just a flimsy body that leads to the afterlife
So we are still us
Just souls living in different shells for every moment of eternity
Constantly searching for the person we once were
Jorge Luis Borges once said:
" Let us be grateful for every moment we meet,
and then forget everything."

Dear coffee,
How are you?
When I was in Japan last month
I prayed to the gods
I knew I wouldn't lose sight of you forever
Don't cry, my best mate
Time and space are a circle
Straight ahead or around the bend
We'll all meet in the end

During the packing process, I made a square base out of cardboard, but due to the size of the piece, I had some problems getting it into the school lift and had to use the stairs to carry it down, as well as getting stuck in the stairwell of the Bargehouse and not being able to get up the stairs. I had to unpack the piece on the Ground floor before I could get it up there.

This process reminded me that I need to consider many details when packing my work next time, as square packaging is very undesirable, and there is no room for maneuvering once it gets stuck.

While setting up the exhibition, I learned much about curating with Geraint and Sarah. When Geraint and Sarah came to help us with the layout of my zone, they said they wanted me to move my work to the middle so that the audience could be more involved in my work and that the first glance through any of the doors would be a lovely scene.

Because the sound of everyone's work in my zone gets confusing when mixed, and my audio is a monologue that needs to be heard very clearly, I opted for external headphones. It was because the media player I borrowed from CLS was too old to transfer the audio to the external headphones, but thankfully Sarah took me to Max for help. He lent me another media player, and I could get sound from my headphones.

After adjusting the position of the work, the student next to me wanted to turn off the lights in our zone so that the image on her projector would be more explicit and came to another student and me to discuss whether this would work.

I prepared my lighting equipment and tried numerous lighting angles the next day, taking into account the key points of not dazzling the audience's eyes as much as possible and maximizing the display of my work. When I finally decided where to place the lights, I was surprised to find that the shadows on the walls added a mysterious ambiance to my area.

· Exhibition 1

3.08 PM 160 x 180 x 90cm (Dimensions variable) Exhibited at Bargehouse 2023

· Exhibition 2

Turn Back into a Stardust 8x 7.5x 7.5cm Exhibited at Filet 2023

At the Opening Event, I met an elderly gentleman who came up to me and asked if I had any of my work here, and I showed him over to see it, just as my classmate captured the scene. This photograph, born out of coincidence, struck me as impressive.

I made a 'monument' for my dog with dog snacks and white chrysanthemums. When I told the gentleman my story, he told me that his dog had cancer and a big tumor in his nose, which made its nose look long and swollen. He didn't know how long his dog had left to live. However, the dog did not know he had cancer and was still jumping around happily every day. The gentleman leaned close to my ear and whispered to me, "We cannot have puppies all our lives, but puppies have had us all their lives."

I am so grateful to him for saying such words to me that night.