Water, Wind, and Wave
Notes on Water, Wind, and Wave
In collaboration with the novelist Kim Yi Seol.
Water and Possibilities
The reason why I draw attention to a riverside is because of its symbolism. The essence of the place typified by a river is water, which is associated with birth, death, and regeneration. Water by definition is moist and keenly related to the circulation of blood and fluid vital to maintaining the life of all animals and plants. Also, it is entwined with the water in the womb and connected to the ocean from which the primordial creatures evolved. The intrinsic quality of water is that it does not have a form. Yet, water takes any form of which that surrounds it. This fluidity and formlessness of water lead to the sea of infinite possibilities. Water, as the mother of potential, epitomizes birth and origin, functioning as a reservoir containing the potentiality of all the beings.
Bad Blood
After reading the book Bad Blood by Kim Yi Seol, I explored riverside areas to gather resources for my project and strolling down the riverside, I arrived at one point which was crowded with floating organisms.
There were outgrown weeds reminiscent of the tropical area somewhere in the Philippine from the movie Days of Being Wild and copious eggs of some aquatic insects. I couldn’t tell if they were the eggs of mosquitos or water striders. Water is indeed the place of birth; nevertheless, the scene didn’t look that holy, I guess, at least from a human perspective, not every delivery on earth is blessed or welcomed. Meanwhile, the life of the protagonist in the novel is narrated as misfortunes running in the “bad blood.” The fact that someone is born into an unfortunate family is not the fault of the bearer of the blood. It is a mere accident of birth. Walking past the riverside, I saw an apartment complex and then a transmission tower and factories. Having the river right in the middle of the town means that it flows through the heart of our living space, in other words, of our reality.
Deconstruction and Reconstruction
The novel Bad Blood is heavy and damp. It is not just because the story revolves around a riverside but because the real issues addressed in work are hardly frivolous. And yet, the novel is neither obliviously dark nor all destructive. While one type of relationship unravels, a new form of relations is conceived. My work stems from a riverside landscape, a real entity, yet it is reconstructed into new shapes and bodies different from that of the real world. They are fluid like water which continually changes according to its surroundings without having a permanent form. Deconstruction is not the same as destruction. It is a form of creation. The world I envisaged in work is a space in which things are ever-changing, energy is circulated, and infinite possibilities emerge. In this way, the work presents the new potential for changes and aspirations for progression. Although it is not entirely synonymous with the word hope, I believe things of that nature are present in the novel as well as in my picture.