Thames

18 × 26cm
pencil drawing on paper
(153 sheets)

2012 in London, I pursued a variety of projects. Every evening I drew the night scenery on newspapers, and with debris that reached the shore of the Thames, I would take them out, make objects with them then float them back away when the water level became higher. Thames is a series of drawings that came about as a result of recording the ships’ routes as well as the flowing river by standing along the Thames for at least half an hour each day. To attempt documenting a flowing river with pencil on paper felt more like superficial portrayal than a record, and even more than a portrayal, it was an ascetic practice. This act of asceticism consisted of the simple labor of filling a piece of paper with lines, which to some may merely serve as pathetic evidence of the amount of time spent to complete the task. While it was relatively easy to follow the flowing river with my eyes, my hands could not keep up with the speed, which made the act of looking and drawing seem meaningless at times. Facing the landscape that was constantly transforming and moving, I felt at once helpless and free, like trying to pin down something that is fleeting, or make clear that which is obscure. In retrospect, the value and worth of standing at a specific location while watching an everyday scene seemed to lie not so much in distinguishing its significance as a private or public event, but rather in how much one remembers and recalls the actual moment.