“Crab, Ascend!” (2024) is an artist film centred around two crab-shaped two kites flown in a sculptural performance against an open sky. It asks how identity and sense of a place are preserved in the face of increasing censorship and autocracy, from the perspective of an artist originally from Hong Kong.
It explores these themes through the phenology of a crab’s moulting cycle and Chinese mythologies about afterlife and reincarnation. Specifically, its delves into the Taoist mythology of forgetting as a condition for reincarnation. It also uses the metaphor of a crab’s moulting cycle to ask whether we can form a perfect living archive, in response to books and digital archives being disappeared for political reasons.
Screen-shots from the film are shown here.
The bamboo and pigments kite were made using traditional Chinese kite making techniques. (details) The metal and porcelain kite, which was exhibited at Frieze Art Fair in 2023, was modelled on Chinese jade burial suits. (details)