青铜器1 / Cradle Sculpture for Paralusion, w/ MaggZ

青qīng铜tóng器qì, or ancient Chinese ritual bronzeware, were excavated in the tombs of royalty and the nobility. But before they became grave goods, their unapologetically brutalist forms made them ideal vessels for ritual offerings of food and drink, in ceremonies to ancestors, deities or spirits.

Heavily inspired by these early bronze designs, I set out to build a life size sculpture for a performance in January. While embracing the stunning form and patterns, I made an effort to subvert the caste & imperialism alluded to by such concoctions, since they were almost only afforded by the rich and the incumbent. So I made a cradle, with the spear piercing right through the centre, acting as a third leg.

Cradles are our first beds. It served such an important role while we cried, weaned and grew. Yet we don’t remember it — a phantom of a bed that we all left behind in our psyche. This too perhaps eclipses my experience as a diasporia who was raised in a culture but lives in another. Now standing six foot tall my baby tongue still stutters. Home is only a spectrum. Memories wax and wane, give way to smog.