mid point statement
The original text came from a poem The Rime of an Ancient Mariner written by Samuel Taylor Coleridge.
I searched for the poem and summaries people have posted on the internet, the characters in the poem are:
ancient mariner
wedding guest
the sailor
albatross
death
The Night-mare Life-in-Death
pilot
pilot’s boy
hermit
then I picked “sailors” and “albatross” as my inspiration, and there are some explanation that I got interested in:
-the sailors blamed at first for killing the albatross, when the wind disappeared for bringing bad luck, then praised when the mist disappeared.
-mocking people who are too quick to judge
-the sailors are too eager to discern, prefer to see things in black and white terms
That made me had an idea of a body piece meant to be worn as a luck charm, with two extreme forms that can be transformed in some way.
Later on I realised that I’ve spent too much time on my text, so went back to the material again. I kept on playing with the spring, tried to pull it to its extreme without ruining the tension, and the negative space created between wires while pulling it has attracted me, then I came up with a few paper models.
end point statement
The silhouette of the bird with the flying gesture to show the direction it is facing, how people have to rely each other when they are away from home and land to avoid fear and loneliness.
The mechanics I used in this piece is something new to me but wanted to try out for so long, I started with metal sheets right away instead of paper or plastic models for more accuracy. Since I wanted to keep the idea of a charm, the size was less than 10cm in diameter, it took me a bit longer than expected to finish from redoing the piece, but I am happy with the final result.
