The Weight of Souls - Grocery bags

Printable fabric and resin
~28'' (H) x ~15'' (W) x ~5'' (D)
2020

"21 Grams – Grocery Bag" is an ongoing series that explores the lives of individuals who left conventional careers to pursue artistic practices. Through interviews, journalistic field research, and portrait photography, I document their stories with the intention of creating an archive of personal transformation and self-discovery. The grocery bag functions both as a vessel for commodities and as a metaphor for the social expectations and values that individuals are asked to carry.

Combining journalistic research with fine art practices—including photography, printable fabric, and photo-based sculpture—the series investigates the internal conflicts artists experience while redefining their lives, the realities of sustaining an artistic practice, the human condition, and existentialism within late-stage capitalism. More broadly, I examine how harmful social norms are shaped by capitalist ideology and gradually become internalized as the standards by which we measure success, self-worth, and the meaning of life.

Each portrait is digitally printed onto translucent fabric and transformed into a photo-based sculpture. I use fabric as a metaphor for the ongoing negotiation between the individual and society. Its soft, translucent, and malleable qualities reflect the ways identities are continuously shaped, stretched, and reconstructed under social expectations. Through these material relationships, I develop a visual language that represents a distorted eco-political system while revealing the effects of specialization, consumer culture, and alienation on the individual.

Economist Adam Smith argued that individual self-interest drives economic prosperity. Yet in today's profit-driven society, this value system often produces inequality, consumerism, and an exhausting cycle of competition with little sense of fulfillment. The COVID-19 pandemic further exposed these structural inequalities, making the pursuit of self-realization increasingly become a privilege rather than a universal possibility.

Through 21 Grams – Grocery Bag, I invite viewers to reflect on what prevents us from pursuing the lives we genuinely desire and what sacrifices are demanded in the pursuit of an ideal life. Ultimately, the series challenges dominant social norms and asks the questions that continue to shape my practice: What distorts our humanity? And what does the American Dream truly mean today?

《21 Grams – Grocery Bag》是一個持續進行中的系列，聚焦於那些離開傳統職涯、選擇投入藝術創作的人們。透過訪談、新聞紀實（實地研究）與肖像攝影，我記錄他們的故事，希望建立一份關於人生轉折與自我追尋的檔案。作品中的購物袋既是承載商品的容器，也象徵著社會期待與價值觀所賦予個人的重量。

本系列透過新聞紀實與純藝術手法，包括攝影、可印刷織物與攝影雕塑（photo-based sculpture）的結合，探討這些藝術家在轉換人生道路時所經歷的內在衝突、當代藝術家的生存處境、人類存在的困境，以及晚期資本主義（late-stage capitalism）下的存在主義（existentialism）。我進一步探討這些有害的社會規範如何受到資本主義思維的操弄，並逐漸內化為人們衡量成功、自我價值與人生意義的標準。

我將人物肖像輸出於可印刷織物之上並製作成攝影雕塑。我運用織物象徵個人與社會之間持續的協商與角力，其柔軟、半透明且可變形的特性，回應了人在社會規範下不斷被塑造、拉扯與重構的狀態。我藉由這些材料創造出一套屬於自己的視覺語言，呈現這個扭曲的生態政治系統（eco-political system），以及專業化、消費文化與異化現象對個人所造成的影響。

經濟學家亞當・斯密（Adam Smith）曾主張，個人的自利行為能夠推動整體經濟的繁榮。然而，在當代以利潤為導向的社會中，這樣的價值體系往往導致貧富不均、消費主義盛行，以及令人疲憊卻難以獲得滿足的競逐。新冠疫情更進一步放大了這些結構性的問題，使追求自我實現逐漸成為少數人才能擁有的特權。

透過《21 Grams – Grocery Bag》，我邀請觀者思考，是什麼阻礙了我們追逐真正渴望的人生？在追求理想生活的過程中，我們究竟必須付出什麼樣的代價？這系列作品希望挑戰既有的社會規範，促使觀者反思個體性，並提出持續困擾我的疑問：究竟是什麼扭曲了我們的人性？今日的美國夢，又真正意味著什麼？