Behind Reductive Narratives

Extremist Iceberg

50cm × 35cm × 70cm

This ice sculpture visualizes the contrast between an extremist leader and their vast support base. Growing up in warm Shenzhen, I was drawn to ice. During a two-week workshop, I learned basic ice-carving techniques and made this sculpture. I froze printed posters, altered armbands, and clay-modelled badges in layers beneath a 3D-printed flag-waving figure. Like an iceberg whose tip conceals a far larger volume below, the work asks viewers to look beyond leaders’ absurdities toward the social and cultural forces shaping support for extremism. Otherwise, what lies beneath may sink us.

Mathematical Hall of Fame

This interactive parody “Hall of Fame” invites viewers to explore mathematicians’ “private” sorrows, often overshadowed by celebrated accomplishments. I prepared a treasure chest containing an item representing each mathematician’s personal story. Touching a portrait with its matching item makes the solemn pose collapse as the story plays: Babbage’s feud with organ grinders, Turing’s forced choice between chemical castration and imprisonment, Galois’ fatal duel, and Hua’s struggle session during the Cultural Revolution. By subverting conventional, achievement-centered portrayals, this piece reveals their human sides and how deeply mathematical development is entangled with its socio-political contexts.