The Bamboo Series - Big Bug

Bamboo, 3.8’x 6.2’x 3’, 2018

Performative, Story-telling Sculpture, Yaoshan, Guizhou, China

The Bamboo Series uses the learning process of bamboo weaving, an ancient and local instrumental skill at an ethnic village in southwest China, as a vehicle to poeticize the “magical-realism” reality in rural contemporary China.

I made Big Bug with bamboo, served as a chicken coop, and gifted it to a local 65-year-old peasant friend. He walks one hour each way to and from the nearby mountains as the sun rises and sets, in order to open gates for his 20-some chickens – so they can run around and look for bugs and plants. He has to close them in at night to prevent attacks from wild cats. They are certainly the real free happy chickens. He plants 500 kg corns each year at the same site to feed the chickens as well. His annual profit is about 1200 RMB (150 Euro) from the sale of the organic chickens. He supplements the income with selling wild honey with another 1000 RMB (125 Euro) yearly.