Material

As a contemporary artist, I, Scarlett Guan, work with coal, ash, and fragile substances that carry the memory of labor and consumption… Growing up in a town where every household cooked and kept warm with coal, I remember the texture of coal—rough and grainy in my hands—and the sharp crackle it gave off as it glowed red before meals were served. These materials are not neutral—they belong to a history of survival, exhaustion, and invisible resistance.

Today, coal is labeled “dirty,” and this slow, labor-intensive way of living is dismissed as backward and erased by urban renewal. By rubbing, layering, and scattering them on paper or canvas, I trace the tension between fragility and endurance, insisting that what is seen as polluting waste can also be a carrier of survival and intimacy. Each mark becomes a witness of impermanence: the dust that slips away is also the dust that records persistence. My practice begins with the physical residue of everyday life, transforming what seems like waste into a testimony of lived experience.

Poetry

Parallel to material work, I draw from poetry—ancient Chinese verses, fragments of modern texts, and my own writing. Poetry allows me to translate the ungraspable into rhythm and imagery. When Du Fu gazed at Mount Tai, or when Li Bai spoke of fleeting youth, their voices already anticipated our contemporary anxieties. I re-contextualize these lines through image and installation, weaving them with material traces. The result is not illustration, but resonance: coal dust and words echo one another, grounding poetry in matter and matter in poetry.

Resistance

My works do not always manifest as monumental objects. Sometimes they remain gestures, temporary arrangements, or textual interventions. Yet they still act in the world, carrying resistance against erasure and conformity. By slowing down the act of making, I resist the acceleration of consumption; by insisting on fragility, I resist the demand for permanence. Viewers’ own breath stirs the coal dust, letting the particles float and settle again, leaving traces of their presence. What matters is not the durability of the object, but the insistence of the gesture. Even when unseen, the work already exists as an encounter—a space where vulnerability is made tangible. I create a space where vulnerability becomes strength, resonating with wider discussions on ecology, post-industrial memory, and collective endurance.