Memory Unboxed

Installation Art (0:08)

INSPIRATION

Space is always a significant topic in my work. To me, living experiences are spatial to some extent. They might not be imprinted by time but must be related to a space or environment. Aiming to create a space for memory, I traced back to my childhood memories to bring out a personal narrative.

MATERIALS

View inside a cardboard box with hand holding the bottom left corner, showing a rectangular lid and a small black circle on the side.

Package Boxes - Memories sealed for a long time

Recycle materials - Furnitures and items in a mess

Handmade paper craft depicting a bookshelf with black and white books and a paper figure lying on a wooden floor.

A miniature cardboard room with a bookshelf and a wall picture, seen from inside a protractor tripod with a paper figure on top.

Animation by projection - Window view

Blue 3D wireframe cube illustration on black background.

PERSONAL STORY TO ARTISTIC EXPRESSION

Memory Unboxed is an installation art work I did to memorize my childhood.

The first home of mine locates in the central area of Chengdu, a city developing in a rapid speed since I was born and becoming one of the largest cities in China in the recent decade. From my earliest memory, there had alway been constructions going on days and nights around this apartment. Through the window, I witnessed skyscrapers rising up. Although I left this home around 12, the spaces and feelings of living in it can be reconstructed easily in my mind.

Through Memory Unboxed, I used recycled materials to symbolize memories people left out in their deeper mind. The shipping box requires an action of unfolding it, which reminds people of tracing back to their sealed past times.

People keep their childhood in shipping boxes and seal them.