Kin (2022) is a 3m aluminium sculpture that premiered at Enlighten Festival, Garema Place, Canberra.
The idea of the sculpture takes inspiration from Kintsugi, a Japanese style of art that uses gold, silver, or platinum to repair broken pottery. The philosophy Kintsugi is to recognise and embrace imperfections and flaws. The gold outline highlights damage and breakage as something to acknowledge and accept, rather than something to cover up or forget. The artwork ‘Kin’ plays with the idea of applying Kintsugi to the human spirit. The name ‘Kin’ refers to both the word gold in Japanese, and the English word, kin, for the human collective. It is an artwork that seeks to connect through an understanding of hardship and hope. ’Kin’ is also about connecting and recognising society’s collective hardship, and sending a message to individuals that no one is alone in their struggle or pain.
Concept | Edison Chen
Contributors | Jeremy Low, Forough Najarbehbahani, Yunzhen Zhang, Nancy Hua, Ricky Qu, Jason Chu, Jonathan Hribar, Enrico Urbina, Tsz Kin Liu, Matt Cabanag, Hanyuan Li, Andrea Pulikottil, Louise Zhou, Marie Montgomery, Muwahid Ahmed, Olivia Chen, Christopher Ho, Tuyet Nguyen, Kaveh Tabar
Manufacturer | Ironbark Metal Design