譚婧
2023
Sublimation printed fabric, tin foil, talcum powder essence
Commissioned by the Rockbund Art Museum.
The Souvenirs is a textile work developed during Tan Jing’s field research in Thailand, extending the material trajectory of her Ah Hung series. Flowers, as plural signifiers of both celebration and mourning, are legible across cultures. For the artist, the act of folding a flower is a ubiquitous, emotion-driven gesture that translates sentiment into form, tucking personal reflections into its folds. It is both a fluid transformation of thought into matter and a discreet disclosure of emotions repressed within specific historical conditions.
Some flowers are fabricated from Thai-language archives and promotional prints, transferred onto special textiles whose inscriptions emerge upon contact with water. Others release the familiar scent of talcum powder, a substance woven into Thai daily life. Here, corporeal intimacy resists concealment, seeping through folds that were meant to hide.
2023, dimension variable
Sublimation printed fabric, tin foil, talcum powder essence
Commissioned by the Rockbund Art Museum