Falling Carefully, 2020
Isaac Chong Wai
Silicon, polylactide, wood, resin,fabric, shoes, human hair ca. 70 x 100 x 100cm
Courtesy of Asia Society, Blindspot Gallery and Zilberman
Isaac Chong Wai presents a body of work including sculpture, video, drawings and ready-made objects. In Falling Carefully, the action of falling is frozen volatility, duplicating the artist’s body into different positions during a fall. Each position supports other positions within a structure that allows the sculptures to stay intact. Chong attempts to radically transform the feeling of powerlessness during a fall – a condition most of us believe we cannot escape the inevitability and impossibility – into an imaginary, collective and supportive foundation.
The philosopher John Locke once discussed the falling man above a crumbled bridge – the action of falling is involuntary. The man does not voluntarily fall, nor could the man avoid falling. The unintentional action of falling is no longer a self-autonomous movement dominated by our body and will. Resisting the automatism, Chong interrupted how we perceive the failure of standing. By questioning the unavoidable outcomes of falling, the work subverts the expected collapse attentively and considerably as the failure of falling.