SLEEpLEASE was exhibited in "Like A Rock", the Ceramic Department Exhibition of Alberta University of the Arts
in 2019 January to February.
PILLOWS
枕
2018 - 2019
ceramics, video & installation
24 x 28 x 7 cm x 9 pieces
61 x 38 x 15cm x 1 piece
40 x 39 x 14cm x 1 piece
My pillow is a container,
My pillow is a collector,
My pillow is a connector.
My pillow was soft, yet it becomes hard after fired.
My thoughts come and keep tugging me all night long until they go. The complexities of life lead me hard to rest well. I fall into my pillow and press my eyes, “Sleep Please”. Perhaps I am over thinking…… If Auguste Rodin’s bronze sculpture The Thinker is alive, what is he thinking? Does he need to sleep? What does his pillow look like and feel like? The pillow is a stuffed cloth bag and is assumed to be soft. In the language of art, materials can speak. Through the fabrication process of The Pillow, from cloth to ceramic, from a functional daily object to an artwork, from soft to hard, from stuffed to hollowed, from weaving to burning, the symbolic meaning of the pillow has transformed from rest to restless. These Pillows are collectors that keep the traces leave by their maker and users, and maybe some secrets, dreams and nightmares. These Pillows are containers that consist a lot of contradictions, such as binary opposition of the assumed nature of a regular cloth bag pillow versus the material nature of ceramics pillow. These Pillows are a connectors that close the gap between the conscious and unconscious mind, like a bridge that connects reality with the world of dreams. Due to the restlessness created by these Pillows, answers may come out during the time of being half asleep and half awake.