Söngla means “chanting” in Icelandic. The idea here is to reimagine what remains engraved in memory - historically, personally and politically - with a "legendary" mosquito*.
This is a piece I created during my residency in Iceland back in 2020 amidst the pandemic. Due to travel restrictions, I was unable to return to Hong Kong, feeling trapped on this island like the one and only mosquito in Iceland for half a year. Though my body was confined to this small piece of land, my thoughts and emotions were fluid and ever-flowing. They chanted in my mind like a hymn, ethereal and haunting. So, I gathered images from my daily life and wove them into this experimental visual piece, accompanied by a poem by American poet Melanie Noel, adding a layer of poetic depth to the work.
*a funny story of “Iceland only has one mosquito — and it lives in a jar of alcohol”
The protective umbrellas multiply. Pink and green. Benign pistols. The future’s flowers.
— a yellow coat and gulls
If a person speaks into one end of a cardboard tube, the sound waves spread out in all
directions ...
directions ...
As a child she was hospitalized for the butterfly trapped in her throat. To free it she endured
injection after injection and thought: mosquito, come silently with your better syringe.
injection after injection and thought: mosquito, come silently with your better syringe.
— a yellow coat and gulls
How imperceptibly a thing can come like nothing much and then brighten the current
a camera in the disarming flower of blood.
a camera in the disarming flower of blood.
Light appears to bend when it passes by an edge —
Iceland’s only mosquito lives in a museum.
Vein of dandelion, milky for the mane. Later the stem a hollow, ear to the ground.
Consider the situation in which ocean waves impinge on a breakwater or some very large
barrier with a sizable hold or gap . . . as the waves push through . . . the waveforms bend . . .
In particular, the approaching parallel waves emerge from the gap in the shape of concentric
half circles. The ocean waves are thus diffracted as they pass through the barrier; the barrier
serves as a diffraction apparatus for ocean waves.
barrier with a sizable hold or gap . . . as the waves push through . . . the waveforms bend . . .
In particular, the approaching parallel waves emerge from the gap in the shape of concentric
half circles. The ocean waves are thus diffracted as they pass through the barrier; the barrier
serves as a diffraction apparatus for ocean waves.
The maternal insect, an IV bag, resting on the wall.
- Melanie Noel
Italicized lines are all from: Barad, Karen. 2007. Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum
Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning. Durham, NC and London: Duke
University Press.
Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning. Durham, NC and London: Duke
University Press.
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Solo exhibition documentation at SÍM Gallery in Iceland 2020
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Group exhibition documentation at Chun Art Museum in Shanghai 2021
