Subin Gang

eggshells, flour glue, fishing wire, thread, carpet, metal wire, 94x60x145 cm

Flowing Stones, 2026

Flowing Stones imagines the stone as an ideal object that continually changes in response to its environment and attempts to imitate its life cycle.

The work is made from eggshells, which, like limestone, are composed primarily of calcium carbonate. The shells are washed, dried, ground into powder, and combined with flour paste to form small triangular units. These are connected with thread to create a flexible surface that grows as more discarded eggshells are collected.

Although each unit is hard like stone, the overall structure can fold and bend in response to surrounding terrain and architecture. Here, fragmentation is not treated as damage, but as a condition that allows the material to be reprocessed, connected, and adapted into a new form.

About the Observing Posture

I pursue a value that I call Practical Purity, which means paying attention to and making use of what I already have or what already exists around me. This value is reflected in Flowing Stones both through its process and its form.

This includes imitating the life cycle of stone as an ideal object; collecting materials through relationships; using low-tech methods such as hand sewing to connect small fragments; and making a blanket-like sculpture that can fold and bend without being assigned a fixed function.

Rather than constantly feeling a sense of lack by idealising what I do not have or what lies beyond my limitations, this reflects an attitude towards life based on looking at what is already available to me and finding other ways to make use of it: living practically with less.

For this, the act of observing is essential. Observation allows me to discover what I had not previously noticed and expands the possibilities of how something can be used. By looking closely at what I already have, I can combine things in different ways and discover something new.

flour, plastic bag, objects in my room and studio, variable installation

Flour glue is a material I encountered by chance while making stone-like forms from eggshells. At first, I used it simply as an adhesive to bind the particles together, but as I observed it bending, cracking, and pulling on the surfaces around it while drying, I began to see it as a sculptural material in its own right.

When flour glue is applied to thin plastic, the evaporation of moisture causes it to shrink, and this contraction pulls and reshapes the plastic surface. Rather than constructing a new supporting structure, I use objects that I already have as supports for this process. By draping thin plastic over these objects and applying flour glue, the forms of the objects, the flexibility of the plastic, and the contraction of the flour glue interact with one another, producing terrain-like forms with folds, rises, and depressions.

Once dry, flour glue is fragile and can break easily, yet when it comes into contact with certain materials, it can also reveal a surprising degree of force. I am interested in this contradictory state. Rather than trying to eliminate or overcome fragility, I observe how it can shift into different qualities and possibilities under specific conditions.

The form of the work is not predetermined. The size and shape of the objects I already have, the way the plastic is positioned, the amount and thickness of the flour glue, moisture, temperature, humidity, and drying time all affect the direction of contraction and the final form. Rather than fully controlling these conditions, I treat them as part of the work and observe the temporary terrains and sculptural forms that emerge through the interaction between what is already present and the forces of the material.