Yupaopao is inspired by sea creatures in seafood markets, their discarded organs and bodies, capturing those fleeting moments when life transforms into food. Its origin comes from a story my mother once told me: fish have an organ called yupao (fish maw, or swim bladder), which she used to play with as a child. Because fish maw does not cook well, it was always removed and thrown away when fish were slaughtered. She would pick it up from the kitchen trash, place it in water, and watch as it slowly floated upward and settled at different levels, just like how the fish would use it to swim when it was alive.
I myself have never seen fish maw fresh from the body. My only memory of it is as a Chinese delicacy, simmered in soups or stews iwht other fancy ingredients. In my imagination, however, it resembled a pink, silky plastic bag, like those piles of discarded organs I glimpsed in seafood markets.
Yupaopao is constructed with spot-welded wire, its structure echoing the Chinese character “口” (mouth). Onto this frame, I paste small flesh-pink squares of xuan paper with glue, recalling both the imprint of teeth and meeting my expectation that it would eventually still be eaten. The result is a hard, brittle shell, suggesting a hybrid form of crabs, shells, and plankton. It becomes an accumulation of countless sea creatures consumed by the human mouth, and their suspended somewhat in-between muscles flex and spirit-being.
For its details, burning incense is used to create lotus root–shaped holes. This act, mirroring the ritual of offering incense, a gesture of mourning that binds together food, death, and the lightness of life on earth.
I myself have never seen fish maw fresh from the body. My only memory of it is as a Chinese delicacy, simmered in soups or stews iwht other fancy ingredients. In my imagination, however, it resembled a pink, silky plastic bag, like those piles of discarded organs I glimpsed in seafood markets.
Yupaopao is constructed with spot-welded wire, its structure echoing the Chinese character “口” (mouth). Onto this frame, I paste small flesh-pink squares of xuan paper with glue, recalling both the imprint of teeth and meeting my expectation that it would eventually still be eaten. The result is a hard, brittle shell, suggesting a hybrid form of crabs, shells, and plankton. It becomes an accumulation of countless sea creatures consumed by the human mouth, and their suspended somewhat in-between muscles flex and spirit-being.
For its details, burning incense is used to create lotus root–shaped holes. This act, mirroring the ritual of offering incense, a gesture of mourning that binds together food, death, and the lightness of life on earth.