Dee Chiu
Solidarity in quarantine. This body of work aims to capture both the ups and downs, highs and lows of this pandemic, from the perspective of a girl who's just trying to live her best life despite everything going on. I hope that one day, we can all look back at the quarantine, and join hands in the understanding that even though things were tough, we made it through.
In the words of a certain wise fish: "just keep swimming." Even though the night is dark, dawn is just over the horizon.
Piece 1: A Bunny A Day Keeps The Emotional Disconnect Away
Polymer clay
A piece devoted to the daily minutiae of quarantine life. Each bunny, each figure, represents a day's emotions, created so to keep in touch with one's feelings in a time when depression and numbness seems ever present. Will we be overrun by bunnies by the end?
Piece 2: Trans Cats Guarding Red Pills
Polymer clay, found objects (pill bottles)
A piece documenting the progress in transitioning I have made since the start of quarantine, by visually showing how many bottles of estrogen pills I have taken, with each pill of estrogen represented by a "red pill", a term originating from the color of older estrogen pills. When a bottle is done, it is capped off by a cat figurine which celebrates the transgender experience through embodying its flag colors.
Piece 3: If You Wanna Live Tomorrow Stab Yourself *Clap Clap*
Polymer clay, found objects (insulin pen caps)
Living with a chronic illness is like staring an unwelcome friend in the face, knowing you'll never be rid of it, ever. This piece transforms a grim reminder that unless I stab myself with a needle every day I might damn well keel over into a celebration. Instead of allowing the empty insulin pen caps to remind me of how much insulin my body has already swallowed up, I turn it into a cute and hopeful celebration of every day that I manage to stay alive to keep fighting.
Piece 4: The Great Scarckitty
Polymer clay, found objects (spent toilet rolls)
What else can be said to be more "quarantine-core" than toilet rolls? Everyone in 10 years will remember the legendary Great Scarcity, when shops ran dry and butt-wipes were rationed. This piece, equally wordplay and commentary, takes a humorous jab at all the people, myself included, who turned into great selfish animals who hoarded their toilet rolls in fear of a future where we would have nothing to wipe with at all.
Piece 5: DOES IT EVER END?
Found objects (Calendar)
A question that I'm sure we've all asked ourselves at this point. Does it? Will it? Will life go back to normal, or is all this our new normal now? Just as the theme of this gallery - quarantine life - has the pandemic as a backdrop, so too does this piece serve to contextualize and draw together the disparate pieces of this collection, posing us a grim but necessary question:
Does it ever end?
