Making Paradise 2002

Editor: Qin Yufen's "Making Paradise," created in 2002, is quite striking. It looks like an immense metal sculpture, maybe even an installation, taking up so much space. It’s…intricate and chaotic, but also seems to be deliberately contained. What do you see in this piece? Curator: This work really demands that we consider the push and pull between utopian desires and dystopian realities. Look closely at the materials—the twisted metal juxtaposed with the bamboo. Editor: Yes, the metal is almost like barbed wire. Curator: Exactly. It speaks to systems of control, confinement, and perhaps even violence, while the bamboo suggests fragility, but also resilience, rootedness, a natural paradise maybe. I think Qin is making a profound statement about imposed structure and potential for life and growth. Does it evoke a sense of unease for you, even perhaps constraint? Editor: Absolutely. There’s a sense of being caught, trapped almost, but with a grounding base. So paradise isn't easily achieved? It requires awareness of restriction and imposed constraint? Curator: Precisely. "Making Paradise" compels us to examine these dichotomies – constraint and freedom, nature and artifice, utopian vision, and the systems that challenge that very vision. And to remember paradise for one is potentially prison for another. Editor: Wow, I’m looking at it completely differently now. I initially saw chaos, but now understand it as a deliberate comment on those conflicting states. Curator: And I'm reminded how relevant these discussions of imposed systems are still today. It's a potent work that transcends its materials.