Anything before Something is an installation work I developed during my residency at Banff Centre for Art and Creativity, reflecting on the open potential of material, where anything can become something, and something might dissolve back into anything. In the artistic practice, materials transform across media and processes — shifting from structural to visual, from functional to resonant — without settling into fixed form.
The installation includes Xuan paper with ink rubbings, recycled hemp strips, and bamboo. The hemp strips, once used to tie bamboo structures, retain the memory of labour in their unruly curves. Reconfigured here, they no longer serve a utilitarian purpose but instead embody traces of time, touch, and transformation.
Guided by Chan practice, the work emphasizes impermanence and the cultivation of presence. In Chan’s thought, nothing is more real than anything else: both states are continuous, both invite awareness. The installation embodies this openness, presenting fragments, shadows, and vibrations as meditations on the process of becoming. As my ongoing long scroll ink rubbing work, Anything before Something is not about arrival or completion but about dwelling in the moment before form, where material and thought remain fluid, subtle, and full of possibility.
