Tools: Unreal Engine, Ableton Live, Maya
As Chinese nationals living in the United States, we face discrimination and oppression from both sides, and the lingering feeling of insecurity never goes away. Bedrooms are the only place where my friends and I can be fully relaxed and have interesting conversations that might be erased elsewhere. I have turned our conversations into flowers, and planted them digitally, so my friends can take care of them anywhere, anytime, and in any way. I want them to know that even if we do not know our destination and everything seems temporary and erasable, we can still have beauty, hope, and attachment to life. Our existences and words can always find a place to bloom.
Transitory Life & Nomadism
Everyone has their own love languages. For me, it is “Do you want a pot of flowers planted by me?” However, a lot of my friends rejected this act of kindness because, like me, they are Chinese immigrants living across and in-between different places. We do not know how long we are able to stay, nor where to go next. We are caught in constant transit and faced with day to day uncertainties. The seemingly simple task of taking care of a plant can become a huge responsibility. We often arrive at our rooms and keep them as minimal as possible, so we are ready to pack and leave them behind if anything happens. It seems like our lives here can be erased at any moment.
Why Bedrooms?
Bedrooms are our last resort in a chaotic and uncertain life. We spend a large portion of our money on the right to temporary living in this private space. We do not have family here, and visiting a friend’s bedroom is like visiting a family member. Because of the transitory and unpredictable nature of our lives, we often try to keep the bedrooms simple but with a slight personal touch. Even though we treat our bedrooms as a temporary stay, it is still a haven to us where we feel the most comfortable and where interesting talks happen. My friends and I have had so many talks here that can not exist elsewhere. Our minds float and our feelings decorate the space.
Why Flowers?
Giving out flowers is my love language. Flowers are like words. They have meanings behind them, they express emotions, and together they become poetry. Appreciation for the beauty of flowers is universal, and can reach beyond languages, cultures and political opinions that seem to divide us further and further. Moreover, they are poems that are hard to censor. I want to have this work visible on the Chinese internet, so I need to find a way to document the essence of our conversations without being censored. There is one famous line in a Chinese poem translated to “the wind doesn't know how to read, so why will it flip the book?” If people are not allowed to express their true self through words, then let nature do the job. It will become a mockery in history if any government even doubts and tries to censor nature, and they will face their consequences.
Censorship
So do our words. Censorship is rampant in China. Our thoughts can only survive if they follow certain rules set by the current people in power. We have to cut our sentences apart, and stitch them together using bizarre acronyms. Politics aside, I am a practitioner of traditional Chinese fortune telling using Iching, but even this is against what the government wants people to see. The situation in the U.S is not the “utopia” many people have dreamt of. Our voice is often ignored, ostracized, and misunderstood by society. Many of us find ourselves in a state of constantly losing our voice. A lot of people pick up the habit of self censoring just to protect themselves and stay in a harmonious bubble. Our words look as banal and powerless as the blank walls in our bedrooms. In any city, there are millions of them, and no one cares to pay attention.
However, in these seemingly dull bedrooms, magical conversations happen and intimate memories take place. I want to archive this. I asked my friends for permission to 3D scan their bedrooms and tried to keep everything as close as possible to what they look like on a regular day. Then I imported the scannings into Unreal Engine, and based on the conversations we had and our shared memories, I carefully filled in the space with digital flowers. Each friend has their own unique arrangement created by me.
Why Digitally?
Digital spaces can surpass the limitations of geographical locations. I have planted the flowers digitally, so my friends can take care of them anywhere, anytime, and in any way. I also want to host and maintain a space on the Chinese internet where I can archive the lives of people like us. I want people who stumble upon it to find a way to dig through the work and learn about the meaning behind the beautiful flowers. Also I want my friends’ families and their friends who do not live with them to also be able to help take care of the flowers together with them.