Art and design often explore relationships between humans and non-humans, the environment and ecology. How can contemporary art and design propose new possibilities for imagining the ‘human’ and the environment?
“Hell is other people.” quote by Jean-Paul Sartre. When I was a teenager, I tended to falsely associate happiness with material possessions, fitting in, and feeling important in the eyes of other people. "…when we think about ourselves, when we try to know ourselves, … we use the knowledge of us which other people already have." In other words, if we are not recognized or if our individual pursuits and dreams are not validated by other people's approval, we often feel that our existence has less meaning or even that it is worthless. For example, during high school, many people around you might determine your worth by your friend-count, they assume people have few friends or no friends living a miserable life. In contrast, as one of the introverts, I probably can never understand the happiness of spending all free time with crowds of people. In other words, everyone has own values and beliefs, so it is inevitable to have some small differences with others. But sometimes, when the differences pile up, this is liable to cause misunderstanding and lead to rebuke and admonition with little or no provocation, and being misunderstood and blamed are certainly not a pleasant experience.
In assessment 01, I explored the relation between human and nature, and I demonstrated in my poster how electronic waste has polluted our environment. Initially, I did some research about artworks that create harmony between people and nature. For example, Hirotoshi Itoh transforms stones into playful sculptures that bring laughs and smiles to people. But after I looked at Tatiana Blass’s Poetic Wax sculptures, I was moved by her poetry yet powerful work, it makes me think that environments which are created by individuals effect our lives every single day. So I changed to focus on social environment tying the quote Jean-Paul Sartre’s famous quote “Hell is other people.” to art to portray ‘human’ and the environment. In order to show the destruction bring by the ‘environment’, my idea is to make a sculpture, then melt it down, and record the process.
After watching some tutorials on Youtube, I made some sculptures with three different materials (soap, plastimake, butter). Butter is the most difficult material to sculpt with, as a result, I can barely sculpt the shape I want. By contrast, soap is easy to sculpt but the problem is it is also easy to break by craving small details into it. So in the end, I chose plastimake to make my final work, it is easy to make shapes and I like the transparency when I melt it in the hot water.
There are three parts for my making process, skeleton, organs and skins. At the beginning, I was struggled to make a proper skull due to two reasons. Firstly, it dries too fast, it always dries out before I finish shaping it. Secondly, when I want to create small details by pressing on the material or carving it, the form will get distorted. After realizing these two downsides with this material. So instead of trying to make every single detail, I looked into more a general shape of the human body. After I finish my model, I put it into boiling water to melt. According to ancient Chinese tale, there are eighteen layers in Chinese Hell, and the second one is hell of Boiling Cauldron Hell. And the sinner would be pushed into the boiling water to be boiled alive. During the melting process, the model slowly changes from solid to liquid without moving the position, it is like a person who is suffering from others’ opinion but too afraid to change anything or make own choices. In the end, it took about 10 minutes for the model to be melted down. Overall, I think the mood for this work is depressing but it is the result I was going for. It matches Sartre's pessimistic conclusion that is our primary relationships with others are based on conflict: resulting in the maxim 'Hell is other people.'
