Function Begets Form\n\nInstallation Image

“In my interpretation of these forms, the surface architecture of the shelves references an expanded illustration of the skin’s dermal layer. This smooth surface is disrupted by blobs of hand-blown glass pumped full of an array of biological substances such as: milk, blood, semen, melanin, and sex hormones.”Jes Fan’s two large sculptures are inspired by classical Chinese scholar’s shelves used by the educated elite to display their collections of objects and ephemera. These hand-blown, glass vessels are injected with biological substances cradled by curves and dips and appear to grow from the sculptural surface like pearls from the flesh of an oyster. The thin veil of glass allows audiences to witness the decay of these liquids over time.The video work Xenophoria, as opposed to the term ‘xenophobia’, refers to a love of the foreign, and is inspired by the name of a mysterious species of aquatic carrier shell. This creature, Xenophora pallidae, calcifies free-floating objects in the water to its spine, bringing foreign bodies into its own structure. Likewise, Xenophoria stages a delirious search for the melanin pigment – the molecule responsible for skin colour – as it manifests in both human and non-human bodies. Referencing the aesthetics of both microscopic imagery and ASMR videos, the work depicts such actions as dissecting squids and bursting their ink sacs, tracing the discoloured tumours within Qing Dynasty painter Lam Qua’s medical paintings, harvesting fungi, and locating bodily moles in an absurdist investigation of the substance of racial othering.