Home is where the heart is

For some people, home means emotional and financial security.

Since growing up, Vivian has been moving houses to different cities or country. There are uncertainty, nostalgia and excitement in changing location. She feels like a floating root in the water, often looking for the next place to settle.

She wants to dig deeper into her own root of being a Chinese. She asks herself if she still holds strongly to her own root, or is she grabbing tightly to the new land in Australia and trying to grow her root from here.

Borrowing ancient Chinese language — oracle bone script, Vivian combined the meaning and shape of ‘house’ and ‘heart’ together. It tells stories of ‘heart lives inside home’. It cherishes the emotional security and value under the roof.

She saw pieced and hammered the symbol repetitively in different sizes. It’s almost like producing offsprings in a family. The repetition in hammering reminds her of building a home requires constant emotional output and bonding. The more she hammered, the more the masking tape breaks and leaves different impression on the metal pieces. It’s similar to how generation keeps changing and adapting in a family.

Home is where the heart is, Vivian Qiu, 2022, Copper, 95cm long