Memories of Elementary School
Ah Leon
阿亮 (陳景亮)
Production date
2009
Object Detail
Media
ceramic stoneware
Measurements
desk 64 x 60 x 44 cm
chair 60 x 38 x 35
chair 60 x 38 x 35
Notes
Memories of Elementary School (2010) is one piece from a large sculptural installation which featured twenty chairs and desks, some covered with scrawled and scratched graffiti, some dilapidated to the point of collapse. The completed installation of twenty-one pairs of desks and chairs took the artist five years to finish. In 2006 Ah Leon attended a re-union of his childhood classmates in Pingtung. In their old rural classroom, they saw the same tiny dilapidated chairs and desks they had used as small children, remembering where each had sat so long ago. Now in middle age, they could still see the shadows of their childhood selves, says the artist. He began to plan an installation, a classroom that memorialised childhood and preserved the memories of those long-lost days. Ah Leon hoped that his work would prompt audiences to remember their own stories, entering a nostalgic voyage into the past. Made of Miaoli clay, and inspired by rustic Taiwanese furniture, Memories of Elementary School personifies Ah Leon’s childhood friends. The surface and patina of the clay emulates the texture of wood so exactly that you can almost feel splinters from the roughened, chipped surface of the desk. Ah Leon says he wants his work to evoke the contrasts between east and west, past and present, vessel and installation, and illustrate a transition from the ancient traditions of mainland China to the experimental art of postmodern Taiwan.
Accession number
2012.002