Wham

(Performance Painting)

Edinburgh Centre for Carbon Innovation 2014.

Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in New York 2014

The Human Impacts Institute's Creative Climate Awards 2014

Wham is a physical response to the amount of carbon being produced by people on a daily basis. Each and every person can reduce this amount, they do however, have to want to.

There has always been and will always be, climate change, none the less. If we can do a little to change things, we probably should. We cannot control nature, but a little effort may help.

I am very aware of the problems of carbon pollution, as my home city of Beijing has a permanent smog cloud hanging over it. The thing I find frustrating is that we can all make a difference, even if it is a small contribution, it is still positive.

The effects and scale of carbon emissions is now very apparent, but this leaves many people with a sense of helplessness, lacking the will to make even a small contribution.

My work comprises of a paper and video record of my taking handfuls of solid carbon and throwing it in anger at a large sheet of paper. The effect is to compel the audience to respond to my anger, which is evident through the impact of the carbon on the paper and captured as an aggressive act through the video. The work is to make people think about the responsibility to be angry, and in turn to take action.

The work is therefore, in two parts, a large painting (3.2m x1.5m) and a video performance piece. The direct use of carbon based material creates its own smog cloud captured in the video, while the paper based work challenges to see this controversial material altering a conventional idea of a painted surface.