Slippery People/滑人 (Homepage Project)

From The Museum of Human Achievement


Event Info
Date start 05.13.18
Date end 05.22.18
Start Time 12am
Format
Medium
Location
Admission Free
Links · Resources
Resources

Welcome to my Homepage presents Slippery People/滑人, by Diane Zhou.

Project Description

In China and in Chinese households in the US, it’s common for hosts to offer guests house slippers after they remove their shoes. Slippers keep the feet warm and prevent qi (气) from leaking out of the soles of the foot.

If the sole is the interface between body and universe, slippers serve the crucial role of cushioning them from unfamiliar, cold floors.

But what is lost when nubbly toes and gnarled veins are snugly capped away? What happens when the contact point between body and universe is sealed over?

My Homepage, Slippery People/滑人, presents a post-society setting where most human beings are nowhere to be found, but they’ve left behind their house slippers, which contain traces of their consciousness. The user can approach the slippers dotting the landscape and access bits of memories, which appear as images and text; the content ranges in scope, from personal photos to news of national events. Through the accumulation of these fragments, the multiple connected “rooms” hint at the contours of the past lives that existed there.

Artist Bio

Zhou uses paintings, sculptures, and screens to flesh out the emergent world of kimokawaii diasporic dystopia horror. She hoards cartoon patterned fabrics and plastic toys born in Chines factories, and combines them with painted imagery and hand sculpted objects such as teeth, eyes, and tongues, creating a collision of expectations between the human that seeks comfort from these objects, and the tenacity of the objects themselves.

Viewing Details

On view online (desktop only) at welcometomyhomepage.net.