Yuerou Lin
Dad’s flower withered, I am no longer a child
Prompt: Design and create a container to hold an object, concept or memory that is significant to you. The goal is to visually express the essential characteristics and a point of view of what is held inside. One can choose to contain an object that is functional, precious or sculptural. Another approach would be to create a container as a portrait of a specific person based on a person you know well, a person from history or of a particular community.
For this project, we were to work with wood. Based on the prompts, I created a laser-cutted wooden container under the theme of the love between father and child. Inspired by my childhood, I crafted the container to resemble a book, reflecting the books that my father brought from China when I moved to Canada, at a very young age. These books served as carriers of culture, language, and of an invisible thread that continuously tied me back to my roots during childhood. The container is designed to open partially, inside, hold an acrylic book listing the titles of the books my father once brought to me. The translucent overlapping forms of each page connotes how my memories fade, blend, and have lost clarity across the years. On the sides of the container, I embedded a message in Morse Code using stapler staples, quoting from one of my favorite books, Cheng Nan Jiu Shi: “Dad’s flower withered, I am no longer a child.” Through this project, I tried to reflect on how the relationship between my father and me has shifted with time and distance over the years. Despite the changing forms of the relationship between me and my parents, the love between us remains.
