Slow Burn

2023

27.9 cm x 21.6 cm (11 in x 8 ½ in), Kizuki Somegami (mulberry blend) paper (China)

These paper-based works [Mùrè I (Mulberry I, 木热 I) and Mùrè II (Mulberry II, 木热 II)] focuses on exploring the production and materiality of silk, linking it to skills, lost histories, and migration of the artist’s family. The work highlights the complex and ethical considerations of silk production and the extraction of the silkworm. Considering the lost potential of the silkworm/moth with my own familial history, the work recreates the lost fragments of memories and skill of my great-grandmother. She was a master embroiderer in China but had to let go of her practice due to the Chinese Cultural Revolution. Slow Burn, Mùrè I (Mulberry I, 木热 I) and Mùrè II (Mulberry II, 木热 II) are handmade papers from mulberry leaves that silkworms consume. The burnt marks on the paper emulates the bite marks and immolation of silkworm, paralleling the lost legacy of my great-grandmother. The paper is Kizuki Somegami, a thin, high quality Kozo paper. This paper is made with 100% Chinese Kozo. Kozo is the white inner bark or 'bast' of the paper mulberry tree.