The rampaging elephant in my abdomen
2025
Cream glue, Silicone, Display, Audio, Wood board, Styrofoam, sponge, Styrofoam, Ready-made
Dimensions variable
In this residency project, I explored how language and eating behavior shape an individual’s relationship with their body and cognition.
Language, as a socialized symbolic system, is not only a tool for expression but also a mechanism of power. It can define the body, shape self-awareness, and control the boundaries and forms of the body. Through language, individuals enter society, define themselves, and simultaneously bear the weight of external forces shaping their identity. Eating, as a tangible manifestation of primal desire, goes beyond the symbolism of language; it represents direct control over the body and is the manipulation of the body’s form and the individual’s existence by primal desires.
The tip of the serpent's tongue spits out language, intricately weaving fiction and symbolism; while eating is the desire to devour, greedily swallowing the massive elephant. Through images, installations, and texts, I attempt to portray the body as a vessel for the conflict between civilization, identity, symbols, and primal desires. Here, language and eating create a space full of tension and flux. The body expands, collapses, and reconstructs in the conflict and tension between each act of swallowing and speaking, blurring boundaries and entering an abyss that cannot be turned back from. In this dialogue with the self, the rampaging elephant in the snake’s belly is silent yet omnipresent.
This is a theater of language and desire. The mirror here is not only a tool of reflection but also an altar for the fulfillment of language, where those syllables slide from the throat and concrete into lumps, performing the alchemy of words giving form.