I was pleasantly surprised when I saw Beili Liu's work for the first time. I think her exploration and research of materials is very inspiring. Oftentimes embodying transience, fragility, and the passage of time, Liu’s immersive installations are engaged with multifaceted dichotomies: lightness contrasted with heft; fierceness countered by resilience, and chaos balanced by quiet order. Working with commonplace materials and elements such as thread, scissors, paper, stone, fire, salt and water, Liu manipulates their intrinsic qualities to extrapolate complex cultural narratives.
The following pictures show her two installation works ‘Current’ and ‘Above, Below’, which are based on the salt.
INSTALLATIONS Current, Salt, water, carbon powder, glass, hardware, string, dimensions various, (globe 5"x5"x5").
Saturated salt water accumulates at the bottom of the bricks
INSTALLATIONS Above, Below, Salt, water, stainless steel, acrylic, hardware, 8'x8'x16' (each brick 1'x1'x1')
Fresh water drips are delivered from the structure above and drip onto the salt bricks below.
Corrosion and crystal growth occur simultaneously throughout time. The materials perform a subtle and gradual change, one that alters the initial arrangement-- sharp lines soften, exact reduces to approximate, ridged form becomes organic form. Traces of the initial configuration remain throughout the duration of the show, inscribing the work with its own history and suggesting ongoing process.
In the discussion with Maiko, we also talked about the meaning of 'time' in my project. Whether it is the crystallization of salt or its dissolution, it can be a metaphor for the passage of time. Furthermore, whether it is the salt that surrounds the original item or the corrosion of salt to certain things (such as ice, iron, etc.), just like an artist Sigalit Landau put a pair of salt-covered shoes on the ice, and within 24 hours, the ice was completely melted. These characteristics have an inseparable relationship with 'time', and this meaning has a subtle connection to the 'healing the pain from the past' that I want to express. Some of the pain events we have experienced surround us during the time passing, but these pains are also smoothed by time.
“终有一天会出现一个人，
让你像流沙、像落雪，
那些别人在上面划了又划的痕迹，
他轻轻一抹，就平了。”
“Someday, one person will appear,
Make you like quicksand, like falling snow,
Those marks that others have scratched and scratched,
After his light touch, they were flat. ”
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