Xiaoshuang Niu

This work is a diary sculpture which was made from receipts I collected from supermarkets whilst shopping in the covid-19 lockdown period.

Using my photos and diaries and shopping receipts I combined these together to make paper sculptures.

My inspiration comes from the panic buying during the early stages of the coronavirus in the UK. At that time the shelves in the supermarkets were almost empty. Everyone began to stockpile food and toilet paper including myself. A very long shop receipt I received one day made me think about the strong connection between my life and shopping.

This work is related to the pandemic. Due to the various restrictions, I was unable to return to the UK as scheduled after the Christmas holidays and instead remained at home in China.

During this period I found some treasures that I had collected in my childhood along with many old things that I thought were useless and had left behind. 

I was surprised to find that although many years have passed, I still felt excited and happy with them, even though there are some items that I don’t remember very clearly. When I showed them to my family members, I got different replies. Only me, the collector and my grandmother who played with me as a child considered them to be precious. However, my Mom who did not live with me until I was 4 said they were useless.

This made me think about the connection between personal collections and memories.

I referred to the ancient decoration named Baibao Qian or ‘a hundred treasures’ inlay which utilised many luxury materials including mother-of-pearl, soapstone, malachite, steatite, lacquer and gilt bronze. So I began making my own treasure inlay. Giving the old objects another identity in a new environment, two kinds of life.

This work examines the connection between me and my family members in 2020. The interaction between me and my family is missing this year which is very rare for my family. In these images I have changed the background to reconnect me with my family. For me, the shop receipt represents the present. The information on it, the address, the credit card number all refers to me in the here and now. The items purchased, vegetables, fruits and meat, also give important information about what it is that constitutes me. So I refer to these materials that I continue to update, as "the currently me”.

This is an album of the objects I collected in my childhood. The paper in the book is made from shop receipts collected whilst shopping in the UK in 2020. The objects imprinted into the papier-mâché were obtained from different relatives in my childhood.

During the pandemic I discovered the connection between me and markets and started to use receipts I collected in my artwork. I refer to an ancient Chinese handicraft—Baibao Qian, or "a hundred treasures" inlay in which luxury materials are inlaid onto objects. I made my own "memory inlay" using my own treasures.

107mm*87mm

11 pages

Digital print, typewriter, rubbing

Edition: 10

Two videos that link my current environment with familiar memories of the past through a consideration of colour. An exploration of identity using my mother tongue in a foreign land.