At the beginning of Unit 1, I had been trying to use some materials that can grow. I was making crystal growing, salt building, wire constructing and hair forming. What they have been or turn to is what I would say a certain status of time. The potentials or possibilities of change give them their uniqueness.

I cultivate them separately or together (crystal, hair salt) in glass jar or cup and observe how they would grow or interact with each other.

I found it quite interesting, the flexible substances become fragile when its fluid form turns to solid.

Sometimes I had some unexpected outcome, some are surprising some are awful, mostly fun. For instance, a mini crystal growing above the main crystal along with the hair string without a crystal seed. Because normally, you should place seed at a certain point so that you can let the solution transform into solid substance around the seed and then grow over time.

As for salt growing, actually, it was a random choice. One day I saw some salt stains came out on a thin tissue after some drops of saltwater dried. The shape and texture of those stains are elegant and beautiful. someone said they look like volcano craters, someone said he can see the surface of the moon, and someone can see mountains. They become an imaginary drawing with different readings of landscape.

I started to drip more drops on the image I've got, and let the layer of salt stains build more and become emphasized. I look into this tiny scenery and realize that this could be the status of time. Like time itself, we can change within it if we keep observing.

Salt water dried by air and the formation of salt layer

Surprising effect of the stains on the paper behind the salt paper

The relationship between hair and brain: scientists depict that the growth of brain size & volume is partly a trade-off with hair.

In the process of human evolution, our ancestor experience hair reduction and larger brain evolving. So I found it is very interesting that the more hair man has lost, the bigger the brain he has had.

The metaphor behind hair:

In China, Confucianism says that hair is given by our parents. In Buddhism, Buddha says that hair stands for desires and vexation. It is said that hair is “3000 threads of vexation”. Therefore, when people choose to convert to Buddhism, there is a ceremony of shaving their hair as a token of renouncing vexation.

I explore this idea and have made hairball again and again in a different size or combine it with a part of different materials. the process of creating a hair ball needs a lot of patience and persistence. To some extent, I would say the hair ball I made has stored a part of my mind or spirit during the time I did only one thing: rubbing the hair.

Life is full of change that can be provided by time. So, what is the relationship between these three elements-life, change and time and how can I connect them with others and another one.

I try to use some bodily elements to create a site filled with symbols of life. Spine and column have a common function that they can hold things up, one is for the human body and the other is for a building. From my point of view, a spine can be regarded as an abstract column.

The process of making a spinal column

Now, I want to talk about the tree. I always feel close to the trees.

What can a 'tree' represent? What can a 'tree' mean to me? In Landscape in the Mist, I can see there is a certain metaphorical understanding behind the symbolism of a tree. A tree could be a lifetime goal or a will, I can see and feel it, it is still and firm, far away from where I stand. I am on my way to approach it. I can imagine that when I stand next to the tree and maybe I would hug it. At that moment, I can tell that I have done something and I would become a tree.

Perhaps, I would say, a tree has become a symbol of the direction I am heading to and a kind of sense of safety. So, it tells me that I am not completely lost or feeble-minded.

Also, trees have been a symbolic figure in poetry for a long time. Mao San who is a writer, poet, admires her dream tree in a short poem 'Say It to Me'

A tree in 'Landscape in the Mist'

'If there's an afterlife,

I would like to be a tree.

Standing there firmly,

with no happiness and sadness.

Half of my body

will be sleeping in the earth peacefully.

Half of my body will be swinging

with the wind joyfully.

Half of my body will be

casting shade for passers-by willingly.

Half of my body will be

bathing in the sunshine warmly.

So quiet and proud will I be,

without depending on and

searching for anything.'

------San Mao

A draft of etching making

I have learned from Astrology that I have a strong sign of water, because my sun and mercury sign is Virgo which is associated with its key planet Mercury and also my moon sign is Pisces known as a typical, mutable water sign.

According to the knowledge of Astrology, I am relatively emotional, mercurial and empathetic. Maybe that could be a reason for why I am interested in those flexible and soft materials. Although people with a strong water sign tend to be inward and shy, they are very tender and considerate. So with these features above built-in, I tend to meditate and imagine a lot, that makes me feel a certain sense of poetry in my daily life. And sometimes I even believe that I can talk to a plant or animal. (Well, I used to talk to my cat when I kept her.)

I have had a habit to capture those poetic moments by camera or extract the sense of them by writing something down as a poem, prose, or diary. Along with time, It is like I have got a taste in symbolism through keeping applying different figurative elements into my creation. And that has become the base of my way of thinking, observing and practising.

Nine-block (top): 1. Rainbow on hand 2. Light on shadow 3. Two pieces of fire 4. Play with art 5. A note of leaving 6. Night projection 7. A glance of window 8. Confusing cat 9. A bug landing

Nine-block (right): 1. Floating beauty 2. High-level bench 3. Natural installation 4. Cool station 5. Shadow on light 6. Nowhere 7. Two Gormleys 8. Moving mountain 9. Branch monster

Nine-block (bottom): 1. Downright cloud 2. A woman and a tree 3. To memory 4. Nowhere 5. A distant tree 6. Moving light 7. Dream lake 8. Pink beach 9. Magical park

I cherish all the moments I see it poetic. I feel grateful and lucky to be able to see them. I would say time is a poet and those scenes are some verses she wrote and present to all human beings who have a belief in life.

There is an old saying in China, '万物有灵‘ (Everything has a living soul). I strongly believe this idea and become more understanding when I immerse myself in nature. Maybe the 'aura' came up by Walter Benjamin could be the same thing as the '灵' (I think it might be partly equivalent to the 'living soul') that ancient Chinese philosopher talks about. Also, in oriental philosophy, it is said that if people want to achieve a kind of perfect harmony, we should believe everything shares a whole, which could be a soul, a system or a rule.

Here please allow me to share a poem I wrote.

架在头顶的火车

把孤高的白鸥杀死了

人们赶来现场

默悼

有人疑惑

有人咒骂巧合的命运

有人为这单纯的逝去祷告

但谁也没见证生死迸裂的那一刻

第一个面见这意外的外国女孩

是她证实了这死去的生命

她原来想告诉大家死亡是柔软的

也是温暖的

但是她用尽力气才说出他人听得懂的话

这鸟，已死

有人说他预见到了

于是他带着白色的鲜花而来

角落里传来细细的哭声

似远似近

在这个良夜前

人，与静止的生命

间隔了死亡

未曾去掉暑气的傍晚的风

轻轻拂过白鸥柔软的躯体

那洁净的白色像是从天空撒落的云朵

不见事故击打的痕迹

不见鲜血

也不见蝇虫乌鸦

地面干干净净

天空突然飘起了雨

人群开始散去

鲜花代替悲悯的心灵还留在原地

雨越下越大

似乎有一个意志

要将这故事洗去

将人与生命共情的时刻

加上实质的挑战

第二天

白鸥和鲜花都不在了

地面是湿润的

剩一小片干爽的印痕

像是新长出来的

火车在头顶穿过

白鸥在天空畅鸣

The train above passers-by’ head

Caused the aloof seagull’s death

People come and gather there

Grieve over his passed

Someone comes to doubt

Someone comes to swear

Someone comes to just pray

No one is present at the moment

That life bumped against death

The girl from an alien country

Who is the first to see the accident

Confirms this creature dead

And tries to tell the fact

Death turns out tender and warm

But she only knows simple words

And said ‘bird, dead’

A man said he has seen it

So he comes with white flowers

In such gentle night

Between Man and still life

Itself is Death

The thin weeping at the corner

Seems to from far or close

The breeze before sunset with the summer heat it remains

Gently, gently brushes seagull’ s soft wings

As white as a slight fall of powdery clouds

There have no trails from a strike

No blood, no flies and no crows

While there has only spotlessly clean ground

Raining out of the blue

Crowd drifted away

Flowers with the mercy of souls stay behind

The rain started to pour more heavily and heavily

Looks like there is a will

Being keen to wash this story away

And poses an authentic challenge to break the moment

That people exchange their empathy

Next day

The Seagull and flowers gone

Ground still damp

With a small piece of dryness

Likely has emerged since yesterday

Trains come through above passers-by’ head

Seagulls in the sky, still freely fly

The practice of wax forming.

The wax smells like soy milk. Its colour, texture and flavour. It could make me relaxed and calmed. I use it to form spheres and do a fluid netting. The process of netting is to repeat again and again. First, I use wicks to make a basic net by twisting and weaving every chink of them together. Then, I heat the solid wax to liquid and use a dropper to let every drop of wax flow down along the wick net.

This process of repetition seems to similar to the hair ball making. So I would say this could be a netting of mind. Both are like the process of meditation. One is to use the fluid or flexible to form into a solid shape, the other is to collect our mind to form into certain energy.