I Packed My Bag

I Packed My Bag begins with a bag, but it ultimately reveals the structure of the world as a complex system. Ceramic forms are cast using former East German mesh shopping bags as molds; the flexible grid of the mesh becomes fossilized in clay. What was once soft becomes rigid. Some forms remain wrapped in their original mesh, so that object and support cannot be clearly separated; function dissolves, but traces remain. The object carries the memory of its previous states. These ceramics are displayed on repurposed styrofoam fishing buoys salvaged from Korean coastlines, bearing the marks of marine wear and fishing lines. East German industrial residue meets Korean maritime material; different geographies, labour histories and material trajectories intersect in a single installation. The bag is no longer a container; it is a knot within a larger network. The title refers to the memory game “I packed my bag,” in which repetition accumulates meaning; likewise, the object accumulates layers through movement and transformation, gathering residues from each system it passes through.