Yiqing Miao

"Intimate Relations 46"

Section MS2, Kelly Spanou

Keywords: body, materials, memory, objects, photography, documentation

My media studies project Intimate Relations 46 is a compilation of voids, gestures, rituals and objects, to explore notions of intimacy. I use clay as the main material to capture my intimate relationships with forty-six objects over the course of forty-six days during the lockdown. In this way, I explore what is being lost when our tactile experiences are being reduced during times when screens mediate our interactions with the world. I recall how I was quarantining during the pandemic. I spent every day in the same space surrounded by the very same objects. Social media were the primary mode of communication with the world, something which made me feel cranky, and insecure given that I was not allowed to meet with my friends, and that all my interactions were interfered with screens. Drawing on the lost physicality, I used clay; a moldable, soft material -like the skin- to capture moments, postures and feelings I had during that time. Over the course of these forty-six experiments, I documented objects that I used in my daily life. The shapes that clay took, became the means of expressing relationships between bodies, as an act of compiling the lost intimacy.