In unstate 04 series, it is a set of installation, comprising of two sets of reliefs and a sculpture.
The assemblage of the ((common)- ality of the)) world with friendship
#04-01
#04-02 (Four Peaks)
#04-03
Using various materials such as texts, photographs, reused materials such as cardboards and pallet woods, paints, insulation tapes, tarpaulin and geometrical patterned table cloths. An experience is created which flows from texts to textures. It examines mental experiences and the human condition in a worldly sense. It tries to enlarge, unified or relate experiences through metaphors. I was also thinking about the act of collecting/recollecting, accumulations/distributions, repetitions/monotone, organising, simplicities, framing. I get excited by many things, such as texts, images, rhythms.
In Unstate #04-01, there is a conflicting and contradiction from the notion of companionship in friendships. A suggestion of tension. Solitude and isolation(which are mind maps) are flanking the left and right side of the center piece (Unstate 04-02, four peaks). ‘Four Peaks’ is a set of collages of digital photographs and texts, ‘Art’, ‘Philosophy’, ‘Love’ and ‘Friendship’. They are inspired by Hannah Ardent’s writing on friendship. In it, she uses the metaphor of being in the oasis and these four limbs of ‘Art’, ‘Philosophy’, ‘Love’ and ‘Friendship’ extend itself into companionship(friendship) which are so vital to living that it is life sustaining, living without these would seemed like a deprivation of life itself.
In this post, I am going to focus on the ‘dissection of breath’ on the mind map. Breath is part of the air element. The Dissection of breath was inspired from two personal experiences in 2019.
Last year September 2019, i had an opportunity to go on a pilgrim trip with friends to a high attitude mountain area which was a challenge to the physical body and every step of the way we had to do activities in a slow manner to conserve our energy and breath to cope with thin oxygen in the environment. Another experience was having spend a year with an elderly friend whom had COPD and had to use a ventilator 24 hours everyday to cope with breathing issues and mobility. Conversations with him often lead to discussions of feelings of isolation, dependency and disconnectedness with the world outside of his home. Memories become the anchor for him to relate the past and the present. And the future is a free flow of imaginations and scientific breakthroughs.
These two experiences actually lead me to much complexities in the contemplations about the physical body and the environment. It is also from a kind of distancing, when the experiences had ended, that I was trying to understand. It is almost effortless if we don’t think about it. It kinda affects us when certain efforts had to be there…
In an article by Kate Bracht on the art of social distancing with Hannah Arendt, She writes that,
Solitude is different from both isolation and loneliness in that it requires being physically alone, but, in solitude, the self is not existentially alone. The self keeps company with itself, in dialogue with itself. While both loneliness and isolation are marked by disconnection and desertion, in solitude the individual remains connected to herself and the world. In the dialogue of self with self, the solitary individual represents the world to herself. Conversely, the two conversing selves of solitude converge through reconnection with another human being who affirms the solitary individual’s unique, unexchangeable identity.
The Art of Social Distancing According to Hannah Arendt by Kate Bracht
Reference:
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petrarch
2. Kate Bracht
ong xiao yun 