The Meditations：Strangers
The shell, a shelter of hardened calcium carbonate, offers eternal protection to the soft body within—even outliving the life it once sheltered. The shell, a sturdy sanctuary of calcium carbonate, offers eternal protection to the soft body within—even outliving the very life it housed. Yet, its hardened surface also suggests fragility, the ever-present possibility of rupture. As note in the book Conchophilia: Shells, Art, and Curiosity in Early Modern Europe, shells are “fragments of a prior existence, architectural relics that endure longer than their makers.”
On another level, the seashell—once a natural object—was alienated by early global capital into an instrument of exploitation. Used as currency in ancient China and beyond, it became a key commodity within the trade routes and colonial networks of the Age of Exploration. Shells were deployed as money to purchase slaves, or harvested and transported by enslaved hands to European collectors. Ultimately, this system collapsed under the pressure of modern capitalist monetary structures, leaving the shell a material witness—distorted, utilized, and finally discarded by capital.Thus, the shell serves both as a mollusk’s “shelter” and as a symbol of colonialism and early capitalism. This duality is embedded within the object: a fragile protective shell and a exiles once alienated by capital.
In this series, the artist adopts a voyeuristic perspective, using large-format Polaroids to capture individuals who have migrated for work, then manually transferring these images onto vast mother-of-pearl shells.
Under the mechanisms of capital, these shells are extracted from the ocean and transported to foreign lands, becoming “strangers on the Land.” Similarly, countless people are displaced by labor, becoming strangers in unfamiliar territories.By gazing upon the concealed states of these structurally silenced individuals—their confusion, vulnerability, and other emotions hidden within their “sanctuaries”—Try to figer out the unspoken individual dilemma beneath the rigid structure of an efficiency-oriented society.
The Meditations:Stragers NO.1：Pinctada maximashell , Polaroid 8x10 Instant Film, lacquer 25(H)*25*6cm | with frame 68(H)*58*8cm，2024
