yidanchen928@gmail.com
Video link, 12-minute runtime：https: //vimeo.com/1133102399?share=copy&fl=sv& fe=ci
In this single-channel video, a butter Maneki-neko is slowly cut apart and rebuilt into a soft, collapsing mound.
The gesture repeats and accumulates, turning a familiar symbol of luck into something perishable, temporary, and oddly tender.
The act of cutting resembles both care and disassembly—a shanzhai ritual where identity is reshaped by the wrong material.
A disembodied voice asking “Where are you?” interrupts the process, accompanied by accidental hiccups that warp the emotional register of the scene.
The sound hovers between comedy and discomfort, echoing the instability of the form itself.
The work examines how imitation can slip into erosion, how symbols degrade into residue, and how intimacy emerges in the wrong places.
yidanchen928@gmail.com
Instagram：chenyidan02