Folding Cosmos：
About Nomadic Play and Wei-Ji Objects
2024~presentMy Little Donkey 303
1400mm*450mm*630mmSelf-weaving
1700mm*480mm*20mmQuartet Flute Party
280mm*280mm*280mmToo Tired To Sleep
5800mm*6200mm*7000mmSilver Dreams
#Unease and Stability
#Chance and Objective
#Risk and Opportunity
#Daily and Spectacular
#Inexpensive and Lavish
During my frequent relocations—from childhood to my time studying abroad—I gradually let go of the desire to possess a “home” as a fixed space. After all, the moment a lease is signed, its impermanence is already predestined. In place of this attachment, I found myself increasingly drawn to portable furniture: foldable, mobile, space-efficient objects that seemed always ready to accompany me on the next journey. This project began with my improvisational remaking of such everyday items.
I adopted a method akin to that of nomadic peoples—adapting to the environment, making use of what is locally available. Within this approach, I take on the perspective of a child among nomads, defining my minimum radius of action by what can be reached on foot, and constructing a “nomadic children's theater” in the here and now. At some point, I came to realize that these limitations—of reachable space and available materials—actually freed me from the dizziness of excessive freedom. In such constraints, I found a new kind of freedom. Also it’s a practice of let down the control—In the process of creation, I do not plan or envision the final form of the work in advance. Instead of being guided by the mind, I follow where the hand leads, responding to the physical, emotional, and sensory impressions brought by the materials or objects at the moment. It is an attitude of allowing the work to unfold naturally.
In this process, the shift from passive relocation to active engagement—what I call nomadic play(both game and performance) o—represents both a change in attitude and a practice of fluid presence. It is also a child’s small act of resistance: I remember seeing Hello Kitty stickers on the toilet lid left by the previous tenant, or tiny stickers proliferating like mold in the corners of a shoe cabinet. Children who move frequently with their families often attempt to mark their territory—through stickers, scribbles, or tiny rearrangements—to carve out a space of their own. As children, we rarely got to decide where to live or when to move. Parents made the rules and strategies, while we, as Michel de Certeau suggests, developed our own tactics under these rules.
Meanwhile, the main objects and materials come from within walking distance of my then-current dwelling: large chain stores like Daiso, local secondhand platforms, outlet corners on the second floor of an obscure supermarket (discovering such places, often unknown even to locals, excites me more than completing the work itself), or simply things picked up on the street. These objects may be of the present—reflecting local aesthetic tendencies—or of the past, carrying unknown histories from their previous owners. Through my actions, their paths are woven into mine, intersecting in the now. I call the objects that participate in this play as “Wei-Ji objects”. “Wei Ji(危机)” in Chinese, the word both danger(Wei, 危) and opportunity(Ji, 机) coexist. Which means an object stumbled upon might later become unavailable, sold out, or discontinued; something seemingly useless might someday find perfect use; a beloved piece might be lost or broken, leaving a trace of sorrow—only to be replaced, at some divine timing, by something more fitting. Often, I feel it wasn’t I who chose these objects, but rather they who summoned me to respond. I do not make them so much as tend to them—as if I were a stylist grooming their hair. I await the threshold where daily play transforms into spectacle and performance. When the time is right, they step onto the stage. Whatever the outcome, I hope the performance is beautiful, and fun.
Ultimately, “wei-ji” also suggests a form of crisis consciousness by nature. Frequent moves, school changes, farewells in childhood; the fire alarms that broke the silence of solitary nights, and the collective trauma of the pandemic. Whether personal or collective, this sense of crisis has, paradoxically, become a kind of daily stability. In my mind, I repeatedly rehearse imaginary reconstructions after disaster. In my body, there lives a small but tenacious desire to rebuild—even if it feels minor or powerless. Like in the final scene of Melancholia, just before the nomad planet crashes into Earth, the protagonists build a fragile tent for the child and call it the “magic cave.” Even then, they try to make a space of shelter and beauty.