Before the music begins – A Reflection on Ku Shang Ling's 2024 Exhibition "Barefoot Journey" at Wistaria Tea House

By Jiang Min Zhen

Day and night continue, in an endless cycle, The natural rhythm never pauses. Breathing, heartbeat, pulse, they propel the days forward, melodies extending. Moment by moment, like flowing springs of awareness, they stream between the pages, leaving traces of the past. Drought, wrinkles, decline, protrusions, concealment, blankness... Life resembles a book with missing pages, Filled with gaps, constantly slipping away, Flipping through page after page, in an endless repetition.

Continuing her previous experiments with porcelain as the main medium, artist Ku Shang Ling's works exhibited at Wistaria Cottage in 2024 primarily feature porcelain shards as their subject, resembling scattered pages opening up to the world. Through rearrangement, she seeks new orders and explores the possibilities of self-dialogue and dialogue with others.

Combining the technique of weaving, Ku Shang Ling imprints images of nets and ropes on porcelain pages, metaphorically symbolizing the various tangible and intangible networks interwoven in life. Within them, each person is like a fish struggling hopelessly yet constantly drifting and struggling.

On the porcelain tiles as white as ruler's paper, she leaves various marks under pressure, including physical changes caused by the firing process: shrinking, wrinkling, swelling, collapsing, etc. These are "flaws" that are strongly avoided in general ceramic production, but in her eyes, they are manifestations of various real perceptions.

She is deeply attracted to these indescribable "flaws," intentionally preserving those formed inadvertently, while continuously experimenting and exploring new possibilities. They change and flow with the state of individual existence, also serving as the most candid and honest self-expression through creation.

In addition to silently carrying them, the rustling sounds produced by the expansion and contraction of ceramics during firing, as well as the friction and cracking sounds produced by collisions, have always lingered in her work and life. Gu Shangling eagerly seeks ways to transform the sounds of ceramics into elements of the exhibition. Seeking the sound and discerning its position, sound becomes a unique perceptual clue, like a sign of existence like breathing, providing space for imagination, and also implying a probing significance akin to walking on thin ice or standing on the brink of an abyss.

In the past, she had moved hanging porcelain balls along the edges of square porcelain boxes, producing continuous low-frequency friction sounds; similar installations had also been created by stacking countless porcelain tiles into rings, not only bearing strong experimental colors, but also showing her strong exploration passion for the relationship between ceramics and sound.

It is worth mentioning that among the exhibited works, there is a series of musical score on one wall. The musical scores are like wordless poems, composed of undulating parallel groove marks, and there are also rare infinite loop scores, inspired by ancient music scores from the Baroque period in the West. Without bar lines, occasional irregular cracks, and without any musical notation filled in, leaving room for imagination, implying the completion of the music and the arrival of the kindred spirit, it's only a matter of time.

From sound to music, it's another long journey of sublimation. The high degree of purification and abstraction in music symbolizes the pursuit of art to a higher level, not only requiring the catalysis of genuine emotions, but also the rigorous demands for harmony and order, and the continuous innovation and breakthroughs from existing limitations. While waiting for the music to happen, all preparations continue as usual, weaving through the network, roaming back and forth in limited time and space, constantly rubbing, tapping, and probing, hoping to catch a glimpse of a glimmer of light and a note in the gap.