This series continues to explore the understated and introspective ways in which emotional meaning is embedded within many Asian cultural traditions. Shaped by a reserved mode of seeing and expressing, emotions are often not displayed openly but entrusted to humble domestic objects. Ideas of home, memory, and security are quietly placed within these small, unassuming forms, allowing profound emotional experiences to be condensed into intimate everyday objects.

Once instruments of writing, these objects no longer serve merely as vessels for language, but become containers for time and perception. The clay, transformed through fire and glaze, develops textures that evoke traces of rock, flowing water, or the growth of plants, revealing an ongoing dialogue between human making and natural processes. The objects thus transcend their material presence, becoming vessels where memory, emotion, and acts of looking repeatedly gather and linger.

Floracry shapes the living forms within Water Basin from clay, transforming the installation from a vessel that merely contains flowing water into a site where “living water” might nurture life. Through their presence, the vessel acquires the possibility of being inhabited, while life, held within it, finds a temporary place of refuge. The practices of the two artists meet between holding and being held, construction and dwelling.

Alongside fish, commonly associated with prosperity within water landscapes, the basin is inhabited by butterflies, dragonflies, ladybugs, and snails. Rather than functioning as fixed symbols, these forms emerge from their respective states of life, offering different points of entry into experiences of emotion, circumstance, and everyday existence.

Balance: Dragonfly

The life of the dragonfly is closely bound to water. Its larvae hatch beneath the surface; after reaching adulthood, it moves through land and air yet never entirely leaves the water behind. Moving between water and air, it pauses only briefly. Its life exists in an in-between state, seeking balance through continual movement and temporary rest.

Chance: Ladybug

Ladybugs are often associated with wishes and good fortune. Their vivid appearance and small bodies make their presence in nature resemble a chance encounter. The opportunities that emerge in life cannot be sought or demanded; though small, they remain impossible to overlook. Within the work, the ladybug’s vivid color turns this chance appearance into a brief yet distinct moment of visibility.

Stability: Snail

The snail moves slowly yet continuously. Its shell allows vulnerability and resilience to coexist: it is both a moving body and a dwelling in itself. Dwelling is therefore no longer a fixed location, but something carried and continually sustained through movement.

Spirit: Butterfly

The butterfly rests with its wings unfolded, recalling Zhuangzi’s dream of the butterfly and its questions of transformation, the boundaries between illusion and reality, and the conditions of existence. Here, the butterfly points not only toward physical transformation, but toward refuge within dreams and the dwelling place of the mind—an existence that is immaterial and, perhaps, more deeply spiritual.