ANDREW CHUN-AN WEI
(L)Architecture Work
Off the Beaten Path
TwoFold
Analog Series
Champaign Boutique Hotel
Ward’s Island Terminal
Marco Polo House
Meditation Pavilion (Built)
Architecture Writing
PKX to JFK (aviation spaces)
Art Work
Jia De I
Jia De II
Millennial
Untitled
Summer
33,000
About / Resume
Portfolio - PDF
Jia De II
Shelley Peterson Student Art Exhibition
Installation, Sculpture | Mixed Media
Prof. Sue Lloyd
Apr-May, 2019
Shelley Peterson Student Art Exhibition
Installation, Sculpture | Mixed Media
Prof. Sue Lloyd
Apr-May, 2019
The second iteration of Jia De was showcased in the Shelley Peterson Student Art Exhibition and was on the University of Toronto Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design website.
While the clay in Jia De I enabled intricate details to be documented, it also made the sculptures fragile. The fragility of the clay sculptures, while accurate to the characteristics of a brewed tea leaf, was somewhat of an undesired outcome. The point of creating a three-dimensional object was to make the unattainable attainable. Instead of making the volatile state of brewing tea leaves attainable, the sculptures monumentalised them and distanced me from the act of tea-making, forcing me to venture into using another material: fabric.
The decision to use fabric as the material for my second attempt at capturing the intangible tea leaves is not only a practical one but a personal choice as well. Since my grandmother made a career and established my family by teaching people how to sew, I used the second sculpture as an opportunity to explore the process and connotations of sewing. By using sewing as the method of creating the second sculpture, (a skill that has not been passed down from my grandparent’s generation), I felt I filled in some of the generational gaps between me and my grandmother. The fabric sculpture achieved what the clay sculptures could not accomplish, which was to capture the changing formal qualities of the brewing tea leaf. Since fabric is flexible, the form of the sculpture is never static. This allowed me to capture the impermanence of the brewing leaves.
The continuous exploration of the same theme in this course has allowed me to inspect different materials and discover the essence of my motive behind the theme of Jia De. The daily practices along with the two projects, while vastly different art-making approaches, share similar qualities: all of them are labour-intensive, involve crafting, and focus on detail. The repeated movements in the process of making these pieces have also allowed a level of meditation for me, giving me a chance to grieve my grandmother’s sudden passing. The tea leaves as the starting point of my works have taken on a life of their own with their abstracted, indescribable forms.
While the clay in Jia De I enabled intricate details to be documented, it also made the sculptures fragile. The fragility of the clay sculptures, while accurate to the characteristics of a brewed tea leaf, was somewhat of an undesired outcome. The point of creating a three-dimensional object was to make the unattainable attainable. Instead of making the volatile state of brewing tea leaves attainable, the sculptures monumentalised them and distanced me from the act of tea-making, forcing me to venture into using another material: fabric.
The decision to use fabric as the material for my second attempt at capturing the intangible tea leaves is not only a practical one but a personal choice as well. Since my grandmother made a career and established my family by teaching people how to sew, I used the second sculpture as an opportunity to explore the process and connotations of sewing. By using sewing as the method of creating the second sculpture, (a skill that has not been passed down from my grandparent’s generation), I felt I filled in some of the generational gaps between me and my grandmother. The fabric sculpture achieved what the clay sculptures could not accomplish, which was to capture the changing formal qualities of the brewing tea leaf. Since fabric is flexible, the form of the sculpture is never static. This allowed me to capture the impermanence of the brewing leaves.
The continuous exploration of the same theme in this course has allowed me to inspect different materials and discover the essence of my motive behind the theme of Jia De. The daily practices along with the two projects, while vastly different art-making approaches, share similar qualities: all of them are labour-intensive, involve crafting, and focus on detail. The repeated movements in the process of making these pieces have also allowed a level of meditation for me, giving me a chance to grieve my grandmother’s sudden passing. The tea leaves as the starting point of my works have taken on a life of their own with their abstracted, indescribable forms.
