Paddling Home 漂流家室
Paddling Home is a 4 feet x 4 feet house floating on the sea. This tiny building resembles a typical residential apartment block completed with features such as bay windows, air conditioning unit, and stainless steel gate, etc Like a paddling boat, two paddling oars can be push out from the two walls allowing the house to be slowly paddle away.The concept of this project came from the extremely expansive living condition Hong Kong where the people can only afford tiny apartment flat and have to spend their lifetime repaying the mortgage. Real estate developers only follow one successful formula that is to squeeze as much money out of the land as possible, then package it with illusive commercial selling grandeur and luxury. That is why people always say we are not working for ourselves but working for the real estate developers and the bankers instead. Paddling Home is about mobility and compact living. It questions alternative way to live in the city; it is about freedom and the search for a better place. The artist think the image of a helpless little house paddling away in a vast dangerous ocean towards the infinite shoreline is similar to using 20 to 30 years time to repay a huge mortgage loan, it is dangerous and helpless.
2009
Paddling Home 漂流家室
Paddling Home is a self-contained 4' x 4' dwelling adrift on the open sea. This miniature structure meticulously replicates a typical Hong Kong apartment block, complete with quintessential features like bay windows, an exterior air conditioning unit, and a stainless-steel security gate. Equipped with two oars that extend from its walls, the house functions as a rowboat, allowing the resident to slowly navigate away from the shore.
The project critiques the hyper-dense and exorbitant living conditions of Hong Kong, where citizens are often confined to "micro-flats" and bound by lifelong mortgages. By satirizing the formulaic luxury marketed by developers, the work highlights a grim reality: that we labor not for ourselves, but for the enrichment of real estate tycoons and bankers. Paddling Home explores themes of mobility and compact living, posing a radical question about alternative existence. The image of this vulnerable structure paddling across a vast, treacherous ocean serves as a poignant metaphor for the 30-year struggle of debt—a journey that is both perilous and profoundly solitary.
Wood, ceramic tiles, aluminium windows, stainless steel gate, pipes, plastic barrels
278cm (H) x 220cm (W) x 290cm (D)
2009