Crocheting and knitting with my own hands act as a record of time, accumulating knowledge as lived experience and conscious innovation, despite being relegated to the status of ‘folk art’ or ‘domestic hobby’. My choice of labour-intensive craft is deliberate; not just as a medium of expression but juxtaposing its process with the human experience. I also employ destruction as a secondary technique in 3 ways: disintegration (burning and melting), transformation (deconstruction and reconstruction) and revocation (erasure of status, identity), as well as create video artworks documenting this process.
“Do you see how an act is not... like a rock that one picks up and throws, and it hits or misses, and that’s the end of it. When that rock is lifted, the earth is lighter; the hand that bears it heavier... All these act within the Equilibrium... all they do is done within the balance of the whole.
What is life without death? Life unchanging, everlasting, eternal? What is it but death— death without rebirth?”
Destruction is a form of ‘sacrifice’, an overarching theme in my practice. Holding onto a belief of Equilibrium, ‘sacrifice’ is not just loss— through destruction comes creation, through death we appreciate life; these moments are paradoxically instantaneous yet everlasting. I play the role of both maker and destroyer, confronting the fluid boundaries of identity and ownership which humans attempt to determine using binary terms. The duality of an object, word, or idea is a point of fascination for me, and I challenge narratives and stereotypes by offering an alternative perspective on ‘Truth’. The vessel, a recurrent form in my practice, could be seen as holding in or keeping out, giving what it contains an identity. The vessel might symbolise a person, a group, or even a nation. Who decides the shape of its walls?
I maintain a limitation of working with a single thread throughout that acts as Time running linearly, utilising crochet/knit’s unique ‘forgiving’ characteristic that allows it to be unravelled and reworked— a reflection of our intangible, layered experiences through a single physical vessel. Through the atrophy of an object made with Time, I aim to capture the feelings of regret and longing in the face of loss.
“[Music is] the same as Ikebana— just one moment. You can’t keep it in the world forever. It’s just that one moment, which vanishes. But that moment is eternal, and [by creating it] you can live in that eternal moment.”