BLACK BUTTERFLY (2021)

An interactive installation filmed with a 360 degree camera at Eveleigh Works - an old blacksmithing workshop located in Redfern. The work is a collaboration between the artist and the team behind Caldera 360 directed by Laurence Rosier Staines, an immersive online art and performance festival. 

When my mother was a child she was at the funeral of her aunt. Shortly after the funeral she saw an enormous black butterfly sitting flat against the window with its large black wings spread open. She was terrified. This work is inspired by that story and my mother's phobia of butterflies. In Chinese culture and superstition, butterflies are related to spirits and ghosts. A famous story is that of 'The Butterfly Lovers', a story of unrequited love where  the two lovers die and are transformed into butterflies. The work uses shadow puppetry as a medium to communicate ideas around ghosts, superstition, memory and haunting. Shadow puppets are thought to be invented by the Chinese over 2000 years ago when the favourite concubine of Emperor Wu from the Han dynasty died. The emperor fell into a deep depression so the minister came up with a clever idea to create a shadow puppet of the deceased concubine and bring her back to life. 

Visit Here: https://360.caldera.sydney/