Monica Tong - Portfolio of Practice

Would you take on a journey of wonder?

Monica Tong RCA MA Ceramic & Glass 2021

Artist statement

My practice investigates the poetic intervention of subtle human senses and emotions through objects made in porcelain and glass.

We connect with the world and the universe through our senses, in order to understand our being in nature and our experience in time. I have found porcelain and glass to be the best media in translating this experience into visual poetry due to their purity and translucency.

I often draw utopias out of residues, creating works that blur the boundary between the positive and the negative of an object by overturning the lost and the remaining. My work embraces ways of seeing, feeling and making in this particular time of a global pandemic, by triggering subtle sensory stimulations that lead the viewer through to the subliminal in a transcendental freefall.

photo from video ‘aurora’

All know that the dewdrop merges with the ocean, But few know that the ocean merges into the dewdrop.

Close your eyes.

Take a deep breath.

Hold for a few seconds.

Exhale slowly.

Repeat until you have slowed down, Decreased your thinking and deepened your awareness.

Visualise a single drop of water.

Watch the drop fall into the ocean.

Feel the ocean merge into the drop. detail photo of ‘harmony II’

My work acts as a meditative ritual in which it activates a space and prompts the observation of the frequency of the subtleties in our surroundings: the rhythm of breath, the reflection of water, the mellifluous movement of porcelain beads in the sound tube, bouncing and pausing. It helps us appreciate the act of spending time, being in the moment and finding connection with our inner and outer worlds.

You are the drop.

You are the ocean.

Breathe and be at peace.

- Kabir，The Ocean of Love

Landscape to soundscape

I was fascinated by the sensual world that Teshima Art Museum creates, where people sit in this vast half open space to watch water droplets forming from the ground and flowing into each other in the quietness of such harmony.

My territory research on time/space/ trace and my dissertation on Taoism inspired me to create landscapes and soundscapes for contemplation and experiential interactions, to find balance between states of inter-being, to feel vitality and beauty in every ephemeral moment.

Courtesy of Teshima Art Museum photo credit: Iwan Baan

open source

detail photo of fluidity in stillness

During a meditation process, all senses become awakened and time slows down to one’s own pace. Drawing inspiration from the water droplets, porcelain beads are used as a repeated motif of individual and collective being in the flow of time.

Flow of time Shards and residues are carefully placed into the walls of the porcelain sound tubes to create an intricate rhythm when porcelain beads bounce, collide, and move through the space. The sound you are hearing, the objects you are looking at, the thoughts and reflection brought upon the viewer - all become part of the work. Every wanderer may find oneself lost in the contemplation of ephemeral beauty.

fluidity in stillness, porcelain, Ø 18x2cm each

harmony I (sound of porcelain), porcelain and walnut wood, approx. 27x9x5cm

inner landscapes of a sound tube

test tiles of various porcelain bodies

harmony II (sound of porcelain), porcelain and walnut wood, approx. 45x12x5cm

Inner landscapes

lost paradise series, porcelain, glass and other mixed media, approx. 25x15x13cm each

My ideas developed further on transforming the forms of water droplets into blown glass, each with inner landscapes composed using porcelain residues. Through a particular lens, a dream-like world is created to be seen and felt, whether romantic or uncanny and mysterious.

detail photo of ‘lost paradise II & III’

‘Before the tool that forces energy outward, we made the tool that brings energy home.’

Prior to the preeminence of sticks, swords and the Hero’s killing tools, our ancestors’ greatest invention was the container: the basket of wild oats, the medicine bundle, the net made of your own hair, the home, the shrine, the place that contains whatever is sacred. The recipient, the holder, the story. The bag of stars.’

-

Ursula K. Le Guin, The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction

lost paradise I, porcelain, glass and other mixed media, approx. 25x15x13cm each

‘Lost paradise’ was the series of work I made after the year-long lockdown in London. I revisited my library of collection from my travels and residues from my first year of making at the RCA prior to the pandemic. Putting these fragments from my past into new compositions is likened to making a collage out of a lost and found diary. Each bit comes with a story; together they form a mysterious inner landscape of water droplets sitting in the form of blown glass. Like Le Guin said, they contain the sacred, the extinct and the stars.

detail photo of ‘lost paradise I’

Having moved between four continents and now working through such unprecedented times, intimate encounters with clay provide me comfort and a sense of groundedness.

These islands are a reflection of my inner emotional state and my adventures, past and future.

No one is an island We are connected by water and earth Let us find solace in nature In what is seemingly ephemeral Do we see eternity

inner landscapes of ‘lost paradise series’

From 2500 years ago, Lao-tzu suggested all things are connected in the Universe as one. ‘Tao’ (道 /dào/: the way) consists of two conflicting, complementary and interdependent forces of Yin and Yang which coexist everywhere in nature, such as the masculum and feminine energies, the positive and negative spaces, birth and death, day and night, light and shadow. With the third element ‘Chi’ (气 /qì/: life force and energy flow), the interaction between Yin and Yang produces all possibilities in the Universe. The energy exchanges between two opposite dualities also forms harmonised wholeness. Yin and Yang support each other, regulate each other, and transform into each other.

-

Lao-tzu, Tao Te Ching

aurora (dance to the solar wind and the sound of porcelain), length 2:37 https://youtu.be/SD7gIoM6GiM

Where do we come from? What are we? Where are we going?

@studio.m.ceramics