Crisscross carpet, China

The following article is provided by ARCHITECT, Nolan Chao

In the last century, Greek architect Dimitri Pikionis made series of bluestone pavements near Acropolis. The flexible use and temporary irregular materials has inspired me. By chance, I got one piece black leather with the texture like a slate. I preserved its original shapes and skins by imitating DimitriPikionis' work, to try to feel his feelings and translate his aesthetics. And I reprocessed, spliced and fabricated it as the "land" beneath my feet, in which way of tailoring, stitching, sewing, and produced out my carpet as "Crisscross Footpaths Between Fields".

The irregular gaps of the leather have formed a strange landscape of lands I grew up on, it is like a sentimental topography. I tried sensing it during the production process the comfort from this life-giving material of cowhide. It warmed my feet and gave an indescribable sensation between the shape and outer contour of a blue slate. I wanted to remind people of re-recognitions for any materials, and I look for all connections of multi-dimensional as to strengthen the connectivity for visual and tactile sensations, in order to eliminate stereotypes and discriminations against intrinsic materials.

As all creatures tend to disappear and decompose by losing their lives, it is meaningless just to burn on fire. I returned the leather to the natural land by posing it onto the ground. After my quietly spending time of a total 53 hours 26 minutes' work, with the cutting sounds recording, I could imagine sounds of cracking in the deeper level land if playing the audio. This might not be like Pikionis' situation, but I strived to explore with it in visual, tactile, auditory, some delicate, subtle characteristics in imperfect, to express a gentle behavior, and it turned out to be a wonderful translation of myself.