2025, In Circulation
Chengdu, China
In Circulation is a collection of site-specific works created within an abandoned, half-built housing community in rural Sichuan. Constructed from discarded objects gathered in Chengdu and the surrounding mountain regions, the project explores the cyclical movement of material forms.
Focusing on the structural aesthetics of circulating industrial, agricultural and domestic debris, In Circulation presents inorganic material form stacked, clustered and layered to mimic organic systems. Suggestive of biological processes, this echo is not only visual, but systemic—shaped by cycles of accumulation, decline, and repurposing, the materials parallel biological growth and decay. The works hover between states of utility and obsolescence, synthetic and organic.
Situated in a building that mirrors its own stalled transformation, the works act as futile relics, suspended in a material purgatory. Drawing on themes of consumption and excess, the project explores these materials as latent structures awaiting regeneration. It takes inspiration from Chengdu’s informal recycling network, where discarded materials are continually reassigned value by local collectors. In Circulation points towards broader systems of environmental and cultural exchange, where nothing remains static, and everything, eventually, moves.
Installation View including Tissue, Sphere and Link
Tissue
Plastic egg packing boxes
Sphere
Plastic street lamp, rocks
Link
Polystyrene packing boxes, red soil (specifically red Triassic sandstone, collected from local farmland)
Installation View including 9 and Pathways
9
Paper, glue
Pathways
Slate roof tiles, glass balls
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