Hanwen Chen

"114's Fragment"

Section MS2, Kelly Spanou

Keywords: materials, memory, domestic space, family

114's Fragment is a dialogue between my family and myself conducted via drawings and physical models. Since I moved to London for my studies, I often talk to my grandparents about my experiences. Once, my grandmother made a sketch of my space according to how she has imagined it to be. In her drawing my room appeared to be very different from the way I experience it in my everyday life. Her sketch was mixed with her blessing, hoping that everything is fine with me in a foreign country. As response to her drawing, I casted objects and parts of my room in clay. My compillation of fragments was blended with my own memories and emotions. Later on, I sent the fragments to my family as a record of my experience in my flat. The parcel contained forty-eight casted memories, voids and negative spaces of domestic objects that resonate with my feelings during that time. Within which, the interior of my house is compiled as a both real and imaginary place, full of dreams and reality, joy and pain, mediated by clay.