Stuck

This work is a large-scale sculptural installation constructed from bamboo.
The structure stands in a curved, self-supporting form and sways like an okiagari-koboshi (a traditional self-righting doll), embodying a state of constant instability.

The installation questions whether a place, institution, or community truly functions as a safe space, or merely sustains the appearance of stability. The preservation of an outer structure does not necessarily mean that what exists within it is protected from danger. Structural continuity and internal safety are not synonymous.

Bamboo is chosen for its distinctive material qualities: flexible yet resilient, it bends under pressure without breaking, continually attempting to return to its original form. This capacity for recovery enables the structure to remain upright and maintain equilibrium, while simultaneously materialising a condition of sustained tension imposed from outside.

The upper section is woven into a basket-like form, within which white dove feathers are contained. The basket operates both as a device of protection and as a boundary that separates the inside from the outside. The feathers held within it exist in a state suspended between protection and confinement.

The structure is activated when it collides with a wall, or when multiple viewers push it simultaneously from different directions. When pressure is applied not from a single force but from dispersed points, the feathers contained inside begin to scatter through the gaps of the woven enclosure.

What becomes visible in this process is not the strength of the structure itself, but the condition of how—and whether—the interior is protected. The bamboo frame does not collapse. It absorbs the force and sways back toward balance. Yet through repeated movement, what had been preserved within becomes exposed to the surrounding environment and is gradually, or sometimes abruptly, released.

Through the bodily intervention of the audience, the installation makes visible how psychological and social safety can exist only as a fragile equilibrium. It reveals what is first to be lost within structures that endure pressure without breaking.

Collaboration with Tainan Bamboo Society
Curator Mankit Auyeung