Sunken Fish
The Sunken Fish
The work draws from an allegory in the novel of the same name: a saint teaches people to save lives, so they cast nets to rescue fish. Yet once the fish are brought ashore, they die; overcome with guilt, the people weave more nets to save more fish — the desire for salvation turning endlessly into harm.
The Sunken Fish unfolds within this paradox. Ramie fabric is soaked in rabbit-skin glue, repeatedly wrapped in copper leaf — pulled, dried, and hardened, retaining both folds and luster. At the fish’s eye lies a paperolle reliquaire — a relic made from rolled scripture, its once-devout words now sealed within the metallic creases.
The work reflects on the cyclical logic between “salvation” and “destruction”: when humanity intervenes in nature under the name of faith or compassion, the gesture of rescue often overlaps with control. The gilded eye gazes back in silence, asking — who, in the end, is being saved? The fish, the saint, or ourselves?