Hope Soak, Spring 2025
mixed media installation at Morrow
Odd Meridian Arts, Vancouver BC
I’m trying to grow a blue garden. Plants like to absorb blue light as it has more energy than other colours in the visible spectrum. Because of this, it is rare to see blue in nature but when we do, it is seen because the energy is being reflected back at us. Gardening compels a person to exercise an expansive time view; past, present, and future tenses merge. What I plant in this blue garden today involves considering what I have done already and at the same time envisioning a future dream.
With an abstract concept like time, meaning is often portrayed through language using spatial metaphors. Whether we are saying, “moving forward in time”, or “passing down knowledge to the next generation”, our perceptions of time are linked to movement. I dreamt for a long time that I would visit Hong Kong because my family is from this area and I finally made that happen in early 2024. On the first day, I took a ferry to one of the local islands but the boat was actually also travelling across time. I could hear my grandma’s voice so clearly around me, even though she had passed away over 20 years ago.
My grandma and I did not share a common language, instead we got by on tense body language, imperfect phrases, and word scraps...never fully understanding each other. On that boat our timelines were finally sailing in the same direction. As her descendant it is implied that future generations will continue below me. I look down to see into the future; I see my grandma’s bunions in my own feet, I feel the ache of my days’ travels, and I plan to have a soak later on.
Installation includes:
Herbal Foot Bath Packet, Foot Bath Scrying Series,Time is Cabbage Lap Blanket, Sensory items on shelf: many hands back scratchers, a few feelings strawberry arbutus log, underwater chair, lettuce, egg, ringette ring, seeds roller, prickly blue poppy globe (Meconopsis horridula), beads, bottle, hexagonal mirror, miracle balls, decorative plastic spill, dried leaves from my neighbourhood, image of a water survival technique
