Rice
米
2021
装置细节照片，尺寸可变，根据特定空间定制；混合媒体：米皮、水；Photos of Installation details, dimensions variable, customized for specific space. Mixed media: Rice, water.
大米在亚洲饮食文化中有着不可替代的重要性，尤其在中国，贯彻在国家与个体的叙事中，与个人的文化身份认同、家庭和身体经验都紧密相连。这种联系不仅在物理和生理层面，也深深影响着人的精神与情感。2016年，我前往美国留学后，新环境的多文化使我对自身的身份进行反思。这一过程中，大米成为了思考的映射，通过每日淘米、烹饪、咀嚼和吞咽，我试图在一个西方世界里重建自己文化身份的空间。大米最终进入喉咙，被消化、吸收，成为我身体的一部分。在这个过程中，每一餐都仿佛一次冥想，一次生长，一次向内探索的旅程。这种向内的进食体验日复一日地重复。在这样看似日常的行为中，我感到自己与米的关系既亲密又具有破坏性。随着米粒在口腔中被碾碎，在胃液中消融，身体与米介入了彼此，转化，最后融合。在疫情期间，社交隔离放大了食物在生活的比重，并强调了其更本质的一面，即生存。有关存在、死亡、身体与居住空间的思考在这之中发芽，促使了「米」雕塑的诞生。「米」脆弱又矛盾，是延续了在我出生之前便存在的一种家国的符号，借由水成型，而水又是隐藏其中的无形之力，也是文化、意识与欲望的化身。水将「米」铸成，同时又能将其倾覆，使之变形、变软、坍塌。水以悄无声息的形式参与，最终蒸发、离开，而「米」是那具被留下的被塑造的身体，是矛盾的、不完整的，也是易碎和可以重组的。
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作品展示，尺寸：130x80x90 厘米；混合媒材：米、水、盐；Installation View, dimension: 130x80x90 cm. Mixed media: Rice, starch, water, salt.
Rice holds deep significance in Asian culinary culture, particularly in China, where it shapes both national and personal narratives, connecting identity, family, and bodily experiences on physical, spiritual, and emotional levels.
In 2016, when I moved to the United States, the multicultural environment prompted me to reflect on my identity. Rice became a metaphor for this process—through daily acts of rinsing, cooking, chewing, and swallowing, I sought to reconstruct a space for my cultural identity within a Western world. Each meal felt like a meditation, a journey of growth and introspection. The physical consumption of rice blurred the boundaries between my body and the material, fostering a relationship marked by intimacy and destruction.
During the pandemic, social isolation magnified the role of food (rice) in life and underscored its essential nature—survival. This reflection on existence, death, and the body inspired the creation of the Rice sculpture. As a material, rice became a metaphor for these intimate yet often burdensome dynamics. I formed a relationship with rice that was deeply physical and symbolic—an interaction marked by rinsing, consuming and eventual merging. These repetitive, mundane actions highlighted how rice, as a cultural and material entity, carries layers of meaning tied to Chinese identity, labor, and sustenance, yet also reveals the often invisible gendered dynamics of care and domesticity.
In the post-pandemic era, my exploration of “home” and “body” extends into broader natural and social spaces, drawing connections between the personal, the cultural, and the political. Rice, as a cornerstone of Chinese identity, becomes my medium for unpacking these entanglements. Its transformation—through water, time, and space—mirrors the shaping of identity itself, a process that is neither fixed nor complete. In the fleeting pause of water, the rice is shaped into a new body, one that embodies both the collective and the deeply personal, allowing me to reimagine identity and gender as sites of continuous flux and negotiation.