One day, while lying on a bed in a London apartment I started thinking about material and memory. I was staring up at a white paper lampshade when it morphed, in my mind, into the spiky sea-urchin lamp I once bought in a coastal city of China.
This surprise connection sparked my desire to weave together seemingly unrelated memories, of my hometown, near Fanshan in China, once known as the ‘alum[1] capital of the world,’ because it made 60% of the world’s alum.
Nestled between mountains and sea, Fanshan now bears the scars of industrial decline and economic shifts. Factories have shut down, young people have moved away, and the traditional craft art of alum sculpture is gradually fading. All of this shapes the town’s identity. Inspired by Gwen Heeney’s, The Post-Industrial Landscape as Site for Creative Practice: Material Memory (2017), I view these landscapes not as abandoned spaces, but as fertile ground for artistic re-imagination.
In my work, I mix raw minerals, sea salt-carrying the scent of the coastal town, industrial fragments, and familiar art materials to call up personal and collective memories. Through visual traces, sound, texture, and even temperature, I invite you to feel a past we may believe we have left behind, yet in truth, have never truly been apart from.
[1] Alum has been used in many ways since ancient times. As a flame retardant, a fixative or mordant for dyeing and tanning, and even for medical purposes.
Nestled between mountains and sea, Fanshan now bears the scars of industrial decline and economic shifts. Factories have shut down, young people have moved away, and the traditional craft art of alum sculpture is gradually fading. All of this shapes the town’s identity. Inspired by Gwen Heeney’s, The Post-Industrial Landscape as Site for Creative Practice: Material Memory (2017), I view these landscapes not as abandoned spaces, but as fertile ground for artistic re-imagination.
In my work, I mix raw minerals, sea salt-carrying the scent of the coastal town, industrial fragments, and familiar art materials to call up personal and collective memories. Through visual traces, sound, texture, and even temperature, I invite you to feel a past we may believe we have left behind, yet in truth, have never truly been apart from.
[1] Alum has been used in many ways since ancient times. As a flame retardant, a fixative or mordant for dyeing and tanning, and even for medical purposes.