Rooster – Design Trust Futures Studio

Rooster

Dawn

Designer-mentee: Alexandra Batten & Daniel Kamp
Collective Master-mentors: Man Fung-yi & Mok Yat-san, Freeman Lau
Lead Curator: Marisa Yiu

L 20 x W 20 x H 35 cm
3D-printed resin, granite stone, dried floral, concrete

Rising, returning, rising again; A complex system in a simple cycle.

The assemblage sculpture is a meditation on the cycle of life. The artist duo uses the shapes and materials associated with the rooster to depict rebirth - a concept symbolised by this earthly bird’s mythical cousin, the Phoenix (Fenghuang).

As life partners and co-creators, the artist duo were drawn to the plurality of the Phoenix (Fenghuang)- its form beyond a defined gender and its decoration luxuriantly everything rather than one thing. As lovers of nature, they were drawn to the earthiness of the rooster and its relationship to time and cycles. In their zodiac sculpture, they combine elements inspired by both birds, in an eclectic and seemingly casual arrangement of materials.

‘Dawn’ tells the story of birth, death, and rebirth in an endless loop. The sculpture attempts to express the simplicity of this cycle as a whole, as well as the chaos of its detail. Like much of the duo’s work, the sculpture begins with a natural granite stone as a foundational element and a representation of the earth. Upon the natural stone sit two halves of a cracked ‘egg’ - a round concrete form created laboriously by hand only to be broken. Life itself, in the form of a flower, grows delicately upward from the crack. Lastly, the skull of a rooster, half embedded in the granite base, returns to the earth as a fossil and begins the cycle anew.

 

Design Process

 

"It is quite hard to determine the outcome and we knew that was going to be a little bit tricky when we did it. But that's also part of the process. It was a combination of chance, but the chance often came in our assembly of the work rather than in the actual materials themselves. We can be confident that we're going to like the outcome, but we don't know what the outcome is exactly going to be. Particularly when we broke the cement open, we can't dictate the textures and the shape of that. The challenge is to mix together the accidental elements in a way that feels balanced." -Alexandra Batten & Daniel Kamp

Project Twelve

 

He Luan by Man Fung-yi & Mok Yat-san (2017)

According to ancient Chinese literature, “He Luan” is “the spirit of the Red God, the accomplice to the Phoenix, with the red body of a fowl, it has colours of five hues and sings songs with five tones”. Comprised of “He” – the female fowl and “Luan” – the male, the piece is created after the ideals of “The One is Two” and “The Two is One”. The heart-shaped large sculptures are made of the artists’ unique stainless steel lattice welding technique which is combined with the unmistakable eyelet drilling style.