Shiyao
With the Covid 19 situation becoming more severe everyday, people are often told to keep 6 feet distance from each other. It’s interesting to me how we have spent most of our life time practicing to be socially independent, but now we finally begin to learn to grow attachment to each other: whether it’s to our family, friends or lover. During this pandemic, you might have watched some videos of people playing instruments on their balconies to encourage their neighbors, or people who opening their windows and singing a song together, or some people who are leaving inspiring notes in the park... all of these heartwarming little events make me recall my personal connection with someone who lives far away from me. We make phone calls very often to make sure each other is doing okay and always stay connected. We are both independent people but also are each other’s emotional guards. This reminds me of a game I used to play when I was a child. It’s called tin can telephone. All you need is to prepare two cans and a string, a person can communicate from one end to the person at another end. Vice versa. It appears very intimate and romantic to me, because there’s a sense of trust and openness. The connection is almost invisible but it’s always there when you need it.
The great lesson a pandemic has taught us so far is to not take anything for granted. Value your relationship with the people around you, value that tiny string (connection) between you, with time you will find how precious and beautiful it is.
My proposal was to create two figures that represent two human beings, and set them 6 feet apart from each other. There will be a red string connecting them, using the tin-can telephone technique (an acoustic voice-transmitting game often played in childhood). I wanted the human figures to be rough and unfinished, to represent how human are with flaws. I also want the string to be as invisible as possible, to represent how weak and delicate our connection towards each other could be - even it's nearly invisible, but it exists. And with that tiny connection, we look more wholesome than we usually are.
Since many places were forced to shut down and I could not get the material I wanted, I decided to stay simple and go with plaster straps. It was my first time exploring plaster, but I had a fun time with it. I didn't have a proper mannequin at home, so I used myself as a reference. What I learned is that plaster is such a fragile material, it could break easily when it's dried - but that also one of my goal, I wanted to create humans that are fragile.
This project was curated by Lance.M Fung. Thanks to Lance, I had an opportunity to exhibit it inside Art Kiosk in downtown Redwood City during one of the most critical time in the history.
