Monica Tong

These were the series of work I made after the year-long lockdown in London. I revisited my library of collection from my travels and residues from my first year of making at the RCA prior to the pandemic. Putting these fragments from my past into new compositions is likened to making a collage out of a lost and found diary. Each bit comes with a story; together they form a mysterious inner landscape of water droplets sitting in the form of blown glass.

As Ursula Le Guin said in The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction, "before the tool that forces energy outward, we made the tool that brings energy home...our ancestors’ greatest invention was the container: the basket of wild oats, the medicine bundle, the net made of your own hair, the home, the shrine, the place that contains whatever is sacred. The recipient, the holder, the story. The bag of stars."

Having moved between four continents and now working through such unprecedented times, intimate encounters with clay provide me comfort and a sense of groundedness. These islands are reflections of my inner emotional state and my adventures, past and future.

Shards and residues are carefully placed into the walls of the porcelain sound tubes to create an intricate rhythm when porcelain beads bounce, collide, and move through the space. The sound you are hearing, the objects you are looking at, the thoughts and reflection brought upon the viewer - all become part of the work. Every wanderer may find oneself lost in the contemplation of ephemeral beauty.

This body of work acts as a meditative ritual in which it activates a space and prompts the observation of the frequency of the subtleties in our surroundings: the rhythm of breath, the reflection of water, the mellifluous movement of porcelain beads bouncing and pausing. It helps us appreciate the act of spending time, being in the moment, and finding connections between our inner and outer worlds.

Influenced by the philosophy of Taoism, I create work that is half fulfilled with my own intimacy with clay and letting the other half fulfilled by the viewer, the wind, the smell, the light, the sound, and every small particle in the surrounding space.

Through the sensual and experiential interactions, one may find the balance between states of inter-being, feel vitality in ephemerality, and become one with the surrounding nature.