My recent “relationship” is hurting me but I can’t let it go. It puts me to a position where I’m not in control and I can’t change the situation. It’s like I can’t move physically. I’m holding on to this fragile “relationship” that is still precious to me. I’m constraint by it. It’s hard to maintain the balance. Mainly influenced by Erwin Wurm’s photographic sculptures, for example:
One Minute Sculpture 
Untitled 
Untitled
It’s a physical state where you cannot move unless you drop the items you’re holding on to. It applies to my emotional state as well. It reminds me of the work I collected for the project HOME:
I think the action of holding on to something suits my emotional state better. Thinking about objects to stand for the fragile “love”, it should be something that would break if I move and drop it. I thought of glass. It also reminds me of the Little Prince:
Jars are usually used to store food to keep it fresh. I think it tells my desire for the “love” to last. For what should be in the jars to stand for the actual thing I’m holding on to, I thought of mirror that is also fragile. The more important reason is that I think what “love” does to me is that I feel my existence through it, which is inspired by Lacan’s theory I noted before:
The Imaginary is the psychic place, or phase, where the child projects its ideas of “self” onto the mirror image it sees. The mirror stage cements a self/other dichotomy, where previously the child had known only “other,” but not “self.” For Lacan, the identification of “self” is always in terms of “other.” This is not the same as a binary opposition, where “self”= what is not “other,” and “other” = what is not “self.” Rather, “self” IS “other”, in Lacan’s view; the idea of the self, that inner being we designate by “I,” is based on an image, an other. The concept of self relies on one’s misidentification with this image of an other.
HTTPS://WWW.WEBPAGES.UIDAHO.EDU/~SFLORES/KLAGESLACAN.HTML
You’re my mediation to see myself, like a mirror. It also reminds me of A Narcissist’s Love Letter by John Howell:
When I say I’m in love with you, I mean I love the way I feel when I’m with you. I love myself through you. I love seeing myself through your eyes. I love seeing myself through my eyes imagining how I look through your eyes. I love having someone new to tell my stories to, to express my opinions, and to share my profound theories and beliefs about the important things in life. I love hearing myself say these things as I imagine how they sound to you, and how enthralled with me I imagine you are.
When I say I’m in love with you, I love having someone beautiful to wear, like a new outfit. I love the way you feel on me. I love the way I feel about me when you are with me.
When I say I’m in love with you, I love not being alone. I love not being that tree falling in the forest. I love having a full-time, personal audience.
When I say I’m in love with you I mean I love being your mystery, your riddle, being what keeps you up at night, your obsession. I love being your altar, your sacrament, your icon, your miracle. I love being your answer. I love being the object of your sacrifice. I love being your pain.
When I say I’m in love with you, I mean I’m in love with being your sun, monopolizing your orbit, being your gravity, keeping you drawn back to me no matter how hard you try to jump or fly, keeping you down. Keeping you mine.
When I say I’m in love with you, I mean I’m in love with breathing your air, sucking your blood, eating your dreams. I’m in love with being your drug, your dagger, your suicide note.
https://thoughtcatalog.com/john-w-howell/2013/05/a-narcissists-love-letter/
It falls to a conflict of holding on to the illusion of self-existence and its damage to my actual existence, which shows I’m not the domination of my existence again.
I thought of 5 situations where the body tries to carry out daily activities and holds on to the jars at the same time:
- Walking (hallway)
- Eating (kitchen)
- Sitting (laptop)
- Brushing/washing (bathroom)
- Cooking (kitchen)
I want to show how this emotional state makes my daily life difficult.
I’m actually still not sure what size of jars would work better and if the mirror in the jars would show because it’s small. Maybe I should do both a distant and close shot.
Eva Wang 