Unu Sohn

The alternative title I was considering for this sculpture: Close the door behind you.

The work I've created in the past several months considers what it means to take up space in the world, and this work specifically contextualizes identity and dynamics in the home. There are unwritten rules in place in one's home: the salt stays here, the plant by the window gets watered once a week, the doorknob needs to be jiggled in such a way. When we invite people into our homes, we hold power in ownership but we are also at the mercy of our guests because they ultimately choose whether or not to respect the rules. Boundaries stretch, exceptions are made happily or reluctantly. Invitations come with stipulations.

A request marks a shift in power--between ours and mine, between public and private. The action required in the request reflects not only this change of dynamics but may also imply that this new space is special, sacred, or safe.

Responding to change--sometimes gracefully, sometimes fumbling. A person is constantly morphing throughout their life. This can be either in response to their environment or an active decision to move towards a goal in the future. Starting a job in a new city, moving past a breakup, or reseting habits to align with values all require a fine balance between comfort and risk.

As reflected in Pivot, I make many of my sculptures without any predetermined plan of how a specific sculpture will "sit." They are made without a base and are instead flipped throughout the sculpting process. What will eventually be internal and external is unknown to even me. Coming from a background on the pottery wheel, this way of making is exciting for me. Throwing on the wheel, you generally get the same silhouette. Hand building on a banding wheel, there is suddenly 360 degrees of difference to explore. Like entering a building from different wings, a sculpture can provide separate experiences based on which angle it is first seen from, none of which is necessarily superior (although there may still be a main entrance). I soon realized that this was actually only 360 degrees of difference on an x-axis, and so then began flipping over work (y-axis access), as I did with the sculpture Welcome. I could further continue making from several sides by sitting the work on different sides (z-axis) as was done with (Please) take off your shoes and this work Pivot.

Solaire Yeux refers to a phrase in Michel Zimbacca’s film L’invention du monde (1952) in which viewers are encouraged to “change their lunar eyes for solar eyes” (solaire yeux) to experience the birth of world. I saw a screening of this at the Surrealist Film Symposium put on by the Tate Modern in conjunction to their Surrealism Beyond Borders exhibition that is on view at the moment.

The line "don't break your tenderness" comes from a keychain I have. It is important to have a mindset that is sweet and delights in it all.

Initially, my degree show installation seems to be in stark contrast to the sculptures. It consists of thirty-six frames, each measuring 1m x 0.5m. They are installed to be equidistant from one another, a repetition that results in form that is geometric, controlled, and fixed. The sculptures are instead curved and biomorphic, dancing on their toes. Emotionally, however, the frames relate to the nature of the work. The plinth becomes light and airy like the sculptures. They feel fluid, as though they would extend into space. They are made of wood but were painted in a gritty white so they look more powdery and soft, like they are disintegrating.

My intention was to create an installation that was more considered than the familiar plinth without detracting from the work itself. Both the install and the work share an essence. They relate in quality, not quantity.

This rendition is based on an initial idea of the plinth around an external corner (the outside of a room). Not only does the plinth infinitely expand towards the viewer, but a space is empty. In the RCA 2022 degree show installation, a space exists in the center. There is 120 degrees confined, and then the plinths open into a space that is 120 degrees unconfined. The confined empty space and the unconfined room that the viewer occupies mirror one another. With the original concept around an external corner, the plinth infinitely expands and the space grows infinitely larger proportionately. I am interested in structures and what these structures do not account for. This relates to my education in Gender Studies, particularly systemic problems juxtaposed with personal realities. The installation also reflects my interest in quantum physics, particularly in response to Karen Barad's "On Touching--the Inhuman That Therefore I Am." In this reading, she explains quantum physics' explanation for an electron:

"the electron’s self-energy takes the form of an electron exchanging a virtual photon (the quantum of the electromagnetic field) with itself. Richard Feynman, one of the key authors of quantum field theory, frames the difficulty in explicitly moral terms: “Instead of going directly from one point to another, the electron goes along for a while and suddenly emits a photon; then (horrors!) it absorbs its own photon. Perhaps there’s something ‘immoral’ about that, but the electron does it!” (Feynman 115–16)."

The electron maintains consistency and stability in the physical world by deviating--and in its very core identity at that--in the virtual world. This unseen virtual world necessitates the world we see and know. Opposites synergize instead of counteract. Identity shifts in one world and this allows it to stay the same in another. My installation is a reflection of this abstract thing that is duality.