Living Room, 2023

When I was a teenager, I had a bowl of goldfish. One day, my mother was cleaning around the living room while I was feeding the fish. She told me that she used to have a bowl of fish just like mine. This was a fragment of memory that stayed with me vividly, and I did not know why I remembered it in such detail until I grew older and slowly felt that I am becoming her in a way. I am at an age of stepping into another phase of being a woman. Getting married, bearing a child, and becoming my mother are what I am expected to be. This is parallel to what I have been expected to be since a teenage girl, just different expectations. In this project, I would like to place myself in both roles of being a woman. By contrasting the differences and similarities, I aim to explore the mechanisms of being a woman.

Girls use beauty tools to be pretty; women later use household tools to work around the house. Girls have uniforms to be good school girls; then, later women put on aprons to be good wives. I am curious about the scenario of a conversation between the two identities of myself. They might be disappointed in each other, or they might hug. The point is that they see each other and tell each other they do not have to be a certain way.