Reconnecting Time

by Silvy Liu

A clock, a camera, a movie maker and a telephone sit illuminated under spotlights at the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts. At first glance, they appear to be merely antiques, but upon further inspection, delicate zippers can be seen snaking across each ones surface, revealing the their innards. These are the works of Hu Shaoming, 25, a recent graduate from the Academy.

“I’ve always been particularly interested in antiques and different inventions and my inspiration often comes from everyday objects. I put these two ideas together and ended up creating a very interesting result.” This graduating series, entitled “Reconnecting Time (时光系列)” took four months to complete. He was searching for items that were representative of industrial advancements during this era and found objects from different countries and decades, between 1910 and 1940. He settled on a phone from Japan, a clock from England, a camera from Germany and a movie maker from the United States.

He decided to embed zippers in them, to create a window into the internal workings of each. “By opening them with a zipper, I’ve created a way to communicate with the era that the objects are from and reconnecting with the past. It’s a way of looking back at the great industrial discoveries of humanity.”

To insert the zippers, Hu carefully studied each object so he could extract all the mechanics within. He then made an incision, placed the zipper and then reassembled the pieces. This process was challenging for Hu because he wanted to “preserve the nature of the original objects, without damaging or corrupting them.”

He felt that exposing the machinery of each object was a way to bring the old cultures into modern space. The objects he had chosen were all manually operable and are still fully functional now. While also being aesthetically pleasing, they will continue to be valuable and functional over time. The art of mechanical design is diminishing and Hu has brought some of this craftsmanship back into the spotlight.

Nearby was another impressive piece by Hu, strikingly different to the other pieces.Umbrella (保护伞) is a 1.7m wide, upside-down cityscape made of found objects all . The piece was placed under an umbrella and displayed above an equally sized square mirror, which displays the two dimensional view of the piece.

“This project started with a piece from my third year in university, which was inspired by the Chinese saying ‘Within a book lies a golden house.’ “I wanted to expand on this concept and I wanted to make a connection with Chinese culture,” Hu says. He found this connection in fengshui, and based the composition of the piece on the luo pan (罗盘) , which is the magnetic compass used to detect the precise direction of an object. The work’s resemblance to the luopan is clear while viewing its reflection on the mirror below. By using contemporary, everyday objects such as table legs, buttons, door knobs, pot handles to represent our basic needs as humans: food, clothing, shelter, and movement. Hu then stacked them to resemble silhouettes of ancient buildings like pagodas. The umbrella that holds up the city is symbolic of the protection and preservation of the ancient and current cultural elements represented, —again creating a dialogue between two different eras.

Beyond the theme of reconnecting time, there is also painstaking detail work. This project took six months to complete. Among the hundreds of towers, Hu assembled metal pegs to write out Chinese characters found on the 44 concentric circles of the luo pan. There are even kinetic elements in the sculpture that slowly turn in place.

Hu turned to sculpture because two dimensional work did not satisfy his artistic ambitions. After discovering sculpture and experiencing its process, he felt he was creating to his full caliber. “You simply wave your brush at a canvas a couple times and a painting is complete, but sculpture takes much more time to physically create a work—it is much more tangible.”

Hu’s work has been gaining international exposure as well as in China . Hu’s “Reconnecting Time” series has recently moved to Beijing, on display at the Third National University Students’ Visual Arts Exhibit, and the Umbrella will soon be displayed at the Shanghai Graduates’ Sculpture exhibit, the largest exhibition for university students in China, where it has been permanently collected.

For more info: http://www.jue.so/u/1190