OUT OF ALIGNMENT

This installation explores the tension between individual growth and social expectations, using orthodontic treatment as a metaphor to examine how individuals are continually adjusted, disciplined, and shaped throughout the process of growing up in order to conform to socially constructed ideas of a “normal” life trajectory.

At the centre of the work is an enlarged orthodontic structure constructed from curved steel bars, silicone dental forms, and metal wire. Once scaled up to the dimensions of the body, a familiar corrective device is transformed into an enclosing and restrictive spatial structure. A child-sized chair is placed inside the brace, with numerous small tooth-like forms attached to its surface, evoking a body that is still in the process of growing while already being subjected to external correction and regulation. Outside the structure, a tooth assembled from wooden building blocks suggests that identity and adulthood are not innate or fixed states, but are continuously constructed, dismantled, recombined, and adjusted through the process of growing up.

The installation also incorporates a vintage television displaying an orthodontic animation. The repeated movement, alignment, and repositioning of teeth establishes a connection between physical correction and processes of social normalisation. Together, the brace structure, teeth, child-sized chair, and moving image create a spatial environment suspended between growth and constraint.

The work further engages with the concept of the “social clock” — the expectation that education, employment, intimate relationships, and the transition into adulthood should unfold according to a shared social timetable. When an individual’s pace of development diverges from this prescribed trajectory, they may begin to correct or reposition themselves in order to return to what is perceived as the “right” place. The work asks whether, when growth is continuously shaped by external standards and expectations, the pain and discomfort produced by that process gradually become inseparable from growing up itself.