understanding emptiness

The implicit nature of emptiness has always played an important role in Chinese and Japanese cultures. In my installation “Island,” the emptiness of the pedestal implies the beauty of the territory between friendship, fear, and war. It is through the deconstruction of any reference to other landmasses that the island’s closeness is defined, offering a range of possibilities for interpreting the relationship between the islands and how their isolation brings into question ownership and authority.

The emptiness of the pedestal is relational to the viewer’s curiosity of what is full versus what is empty and how a full element can be of less interest when it is portrayed against the allure of the actual islands. The pedestal emptiness also opens up limitless interpretations on the value of unseen resources and gathers the observer’s attention to the voids presented in the shape of the islands.