Double Carps 雙鯉魚

Title: Double Carps

Years: 2015-2024

Dimensions: Varies by venue

Materials: Tea leaves, rice, fabric, filling, cotton thread, acrylic paint, clam shells, sand, ceramics

"Double Carps" is a love letter to my two deceased grandmothers. The work draws on the longing expressed in the Han Dynasty poem "Drinking Horse at the Great Wall," using the dual meaning of the double carp to connect love, food, letters, and rituals. Through sensory memories and symbols of daily life, it conveys the ties of blood and the connections between people and nature.

The soft sculpture is inspired by the tea leaf pillow filled by my grandmother in my childhood, a blessing hidden within a protective amulet, emerging from pockets on the fish's body, strung together by a maternal lineage. The dissected fish represents the everyday ritual of drying fish at my grandmother's home in Penghu. Penghu has a unique cultural practice of packing rice in large clams to honor ancestors, placing the clamshell rice packages—symbolizing silver coins—on graves after visiting the graveyard to bless descendants.

"Double Carps" is an eco-feminist matriarchal poem that subverts the passive, subordinate view of women as natural resources within patriarchal structures and the rational values of capitalism, emphasizing the importance of women's intangible cultural heritage.

 

名稱:雙鯉魚

年代:2015-2024

尺寸:依場地而定

媒材:茶葉、米、布、填充物、棉線、壓克力顏料、蛤蠣殼、砂、陶

《雙鯉魚》是給我兩位已逝祖母的情書。作品借用漢代樂府「飲馬長城窟行」的思念,以其中雙鯉魚的雙關,聯結愛、食物、書信、與儀式。透過生活的感官記憶與符號,傳達血脈、與人和自然的連結。

軟雕塑源於童年時外婆填充的茶葉枕,護身符包藏的祝福,從魚身上的口袋翻出,藉著臍帶血管串起母性的情感傳承。對剖的魚是澎湖祖母家晾魚乾的日常。澎湖人有以大蛤包飯祭祖的特殊文化,掃墓後將象徵銀錢的蛤蠣殼放在墳上,庇蔭子孫。

《雙鯉魚》是首生態女性主義的母系詩,在父權結構與工具理性的資本價值觀中,顛覆女性如自然資源的被動附屬性,強調女性的非物質文化遺產。