To Knot Is to Hope — and Still I Push the Stone

EN:
This work gathers a tree of branches, a knotted rope-net, a stone with my handprints, and drifting smoke — four elements that map my meditation on time, memory, and living. The tree recalls the deep-time process of plants turning into coal, suggesting that all life is sedimented time. The knotted net references ancient record-keeping — quipu, knotting — but it sags like Dalí’s melting clocks, signaling that even our systems of memory eventually slacken and fail.

The stone is my Sisyphus: I have pushed it repeatedly, leaving white handprints as small medals of effort. This gesture is not merely symbolic; it is physical labor, grounding me in the present. The smoke drifts upward and slips through the net — a reminder that the most beautiful and poetic moments cannot be archived, captured, or posted.

In a time when life is often lived to be recorded — staged for the feed, edited into proof — this work asks the opposite: What if we simply live? What if the real task is to push the stone, to feel its weight, to breathe with the smoke, knowing it will vanish?

This installation concludes not with despair but with a stance: even though the net fails, I choose to keep knotting, keep pushing, keep living. This is my existential response: life is not a spectacle to be preserved but a task to be lived, every second an act of resistance against nihilism.

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中文：
这件作品汇集了树枝搭建的树、结绳的网、带有我手印的石头和缓缓升起的烟雾——四个元素共同构成我对时间、记忆与生活的思考。树呼应植物成煤的深时过程，暗示一切生命都是时间的沉积。绳结网呼应古老的记录方式——结绳记事——却像达利画中软化下坠的时钟，象征即便是记忆的系统也终会松弛、失效。

石头是我的西西弗斯之石：我一次次推它，在上面留下白色手印，像一枚枚努力的勋章。这不是象征性的动作，而是真实的体力劳动，让我落地、让我回到当下。烟雾缓缓升起，却总从网中溢走——提醒我最诗意、最美的瞬间是无法被归档、捕捉或发布的。

在一个生活常常被用来“记录”的时代——为社交媒体而摆拍、剪辑、证明——这件作品反问：如果我们只去好好生活呢？如果真正的任务是推石头、感受重量、与烟雾一起呼吸，明知它会消散呢？

作品的结论不是绝望，而是一种立场：即便网兜不住，我依然选择继续打结、继续推石、继续生活。这是我的存在主义回应：生活不是为了保存，而是为了去活，每一秒都在对虚无主义进行抵抗。