THE UPSIDE-DOWN TOWER OF BABEL:
How We Perceive the World

Role
Group Leader, Art Director, Designer
-
Studio work
Space design
2020.11

In this space design work, I have constructed an upside-down tower that spirals downward. As the viewer descends the staircase, they will see the exhibits within the tower: twenty small to large humanoid creations that relate to human society from the Crucifixion to the Barbie doll, the the Terracotta Warriors to the ancient Greek statues, and the Easter Island stone statue to the final Buddha statue. These statues are objects made by human beings according to their own scales, and their relationship to human beings themselves reflects how human beings perceive and construct the society around them: those of a smaller scale than human beings are personal objects, toys, puppets to be manipulated; equal scale are substitutes for human beings; larger scale are beings “above” human beings, such as gods, to be looked up to and revered.

Humans measure the outside world according to their own scale, and this is the way they understand the world. That is why I named this work the Tower of Babel. While the mythical man built the Tower of Babel to transcend himself and know God, my Tower of Babel is the opposite: man is trapped in himself and measures the world by his own scale.

 

10cm-Pottery Figurines










30cm-Barbie




50cm-Puppet Show










150cm-Terracotta Warriors









1000cm-Easter Island Stone Statue









2000cm-Guanyin Bodhisattva Statue