In the Realm of Last Things
2025
mixed-media installation
Taichung Art Museum, Taiwan
This installation takes as its motif the beach—a liminal zone between nature (the sea) and civilization (the city)—and the marine debris that washes ashore as the residual by-products of consumer society.
Marine debris consists of objects that originally functioned as products or elements of urban infrastructure within the everyday life of the city. Having lost their original functions and purposes, they are discarded from the urban environment, drift through the sea over long periods of time, and eventually wash up on the shore. Once artificial objects, their surfaces become worn by natural forces, their forms gradually rounded, and their bodies fragmented through repeated erosion and damage. What becomes visible in marine debris is a process through which new forms are generated by nature's continuous intervention into the artificial. This process of transformation can also be observed in urban debris.
Drawing upon marine debris collected from beaches, I create assemblages, drawings, and sculptural works by abstracting the forms of both marine and urban debris. These works are interconnected through natural materials such as sand, plants, and the circulation of water, forming an installation that reveals the continuous circulation of matter across the boundaries between city and sea, and between the artificial and the natural.
The installation occupies a hidden transitional passage located outside the museum's main galleries—an intermediate space connecting the interior of the museum to the outdoors. Extending toward the adjacent park, the surrounding natural environment, and the city beyond, the installation establishes a visual dialogue with its surroundings, transforming this transitional space into a threshold between the museum and the urban landscape.