Beracah Peng

‘Year of The Snake: Nostalgia’ is a physical manifestation my personal experience of the intersection between time and culture. Through my piece, I wanted to convey the cyclical nature of time and the nostalgia that it generates and inspires in conjunction with culture. The paper cutout puppets are representative of a traditional paper shadow puppet show I had the privilege of experiencing in China in 2013–the previous year of the snake–and the nostalgia I hold in my heart for that performance. The puppets decrescendo in size towards the right side, in order to represent movement and convey the life that is breathed into these puppets by the puppeteer. The tessellating main “body” of the piece–the snake– represents time: an ever-evolving, ever-moving medium that phenomenally tends to repeat itself in patterns. It is worn on my head, emphasizing the face of my body in the current year of the snake, 2025, and contrasting between the tangible features of my face in the present and the intangible aspects of time, memory, and the past that is metaphorically represented in a paper medium. Between each component of the piece, the complicated and fascinating relationship between time and culture becomes a point of contention, conveyed through the vessel of the experiences that I have personally lived. Nostalgia, memories, and the past shaped my present self through the medium of my culture, which I continue to explore and better understand through art.