gelatine, stainless steel wire, plastic vinyl, variable installation

Swaying Poem series treats language not simply as a tool for conveying meaning, but as a material surface that sways and transforms in response to its surroundings. The poems are rendered in gelatine, a transparent and flexible material that responds to gravity, light, temperature, and humidity. Suspended in space, the letters remain partially legible while also blurring, folding, stretching, and changing shape. As a result, they may first be encountered as physical forms or material presences before they are read as language.

The work also emerges from a delay in the process of understanding the poem. As English is not Subin’s first language, its meaning is not immediately accessible. A second delay occurs through the ambiguity and indirect language of poetry itself. Produced through the conditions of collaboration, this double delay allows language to be encountered as something unfamiliar, temporarily detached from habitual meanings and assumptions.

In Swaying Poem, language occupies a shifting state between text, image, and sculpture. Rather than settling into a single, stable interpretation, the poem remains suspended: something that can be read, but also physically and spatially encountered.

All poems and texts © Lili Xue, unless otherwise stated.