Snow to Snow
7.5cm hight 4cm x 4cm x 5cm bamboo chair, tissue, Sodium polyacrylate, water, Potassium dihydrophosphate saturation solution
2021
This work investigates the gradual manifestation of loss and the dialectical nature of existence through a dialogue between somatic decay and Buddhist philosophy. Rooted in the early experience of witnessing a grandfather’s physical decline from cancer, the project reconsiders death not as a singular, distant event, but as an active, creeping process. The slow realization of bereavement accumulates over time, mirroring the quiet proliferation of frost or the silent spread of cellular decay. This continuous erasure culminates in the eventual disappearance of individual identity, akin to a single snowflake dissolving into a vast expanse of winter.
Drawing from the Buddhist principles of birth, old age, sickness, and death, the installation presents the subject of existence as an entity bound to cyclic reincarnation. Within this framework, illness and health, or samsara and nirvana, exist in a state of mutual necessity. The work embodies this philosophy through a material transformation: snow emerges from the skeletal form of a chair, gradually peeling away until dust returns to dust and snow to snow. By aligning the transience of the physical body with the cyclical endurance of nature, the piece reframes death as a transition toward wholeness, where the individual soul dissolves into the resting state of the universal landscape.