Light and Hammer (光与锤子)

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In 2020, Fanglu traveled to the village of Sanbao in Guizhou province where she learned the spinning, weaving, and dyeing traditions of the local Dong (Kam) people. Discovering the stories behind Dong’s traditional bright fabrics inspired a new series of works entitled Light and Hammer.

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Whether a large wall installation or a smaller sculptural work, the pieces possess an arresting beauty. The iridescent sheen of Dong’s hand-crafted fabrics and the organic meandering contours of the sculptures command the viewer to stop and look intently. What are these shimmering, wrinkled curves frozen in a dance-like motion? The effortless loops, arching upwards and folding on top of each other, embark our imagination on a journey. Are they rising or collapsing? Exhaling or inhaling? Shrinking or expanding? Our attention is then drawn to the surface. Is it leather that we see, warped metal, paper, or, indeed, fabric? As with many of Lin’s works, a daring thought crosses your mind: “Can I touch it while no one is looking?”

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The sculptures invite us to perceive their physicality and the kinetic force behind them. They are anything but still. As we circle around them, we provide the movement which helps to reveal the restlessness of these works. Impossible to hold as a single image, they look different from every point of view.

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The sculptural compositions of concave and convex forms are the artist’s impressions of the Dong craftswomen—the keepers and carriers of centuries’ worth of knowledge and secrets of the trade. The serpentine curves of the sculptures are inspired by their body shapes. Their wrinkled faces, hunched backs, and rough hands are masterpieces—artworks built on a lifetime of stoic and practical love for their families, their people, and their culture. The fiber of their strong characters is made up of hard work and perseverance, but also of joy found in craft-making and singing that the Dong people are so famous for. It is this stamina, as well as their dedication to the craft carried through their lives until old age, that has made a deep impression on the artist.

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The bright fabrics with copper sheen employed in Lin’s sculptures are the handiwork of the Dong women artisans of Sanbao village. Traditionally, the fabrics are made through a number of laborious processes that last throughout the year. They begin with planting and growing cotton and dyes, spinning fibers into yarn, and weaving cotton cloth. They end with repetitive, lengthy cycles of dyeing, folding, washing, drying, and beating the cloth with wooden mallets. The shiny fabrics similar to the ones Fanglu Lin employs in her sculptures take even longer to craft and are therefore reserved for ceremonial attire. For the fabric to acquire its characteristic bronze sheen, it must undergo additional steps that many of today’s artisans are becoming reluctant to take. Lin’s gilded fabrics go through even more cycles of dyeing than the original tradition demands, in order to obtain the texture and sheen desired by the artist.

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The more tedious the process is, the brighter the fabric becomes. The brighter Lin’s sculptures shine, the clearer her artistic metaphor comes across: demanding environments and life circumstances shape the strongest of women’s characters. A woman’s color and sheen may eventually fade, but the tightly woven fibers of her character can withstand almost any pressure that comes her way.

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