Life Line
Vivian has been braiding her Life Line cord wherever she traveled from Sweden, to China and then back to Australia since June 2023. The Life Line cord captures life’s moments, stories and body sensation.
She may be braiding while listening to the sound of the sea, sitting by the lake, or sitting on the train or in the cafe.
After more than 4 months of braiding, she noticed the change in the rope. The braid is also a visual journal.
When she was in a holiday mode in Sweden. The braid seems loose, fluffy and relaxing. When she traveled back to China. She experienced a great level of anxiety as her parents and relatives kept telling her to get married. While she was waiting for her flight back to Australia in an airport in China, she was braiding very tensely. The braid is very tense and tight. It records her body sensation.
She continued braiding, at one point, the braid changed its own pattern without her intentionally doing so. It reminds her how our life may pivot or change direction by natural force. And it‘s ok. The new life path may also be a rewarding one.
The Life Line work tells her visually how her body is feeling. It continues to document every aspect of her life as an artist: the people she's met, the place she visited, and the emotion her body was holding.
The braiding technique is called Kumihimo, it’s a Japanese technique.
Life Line, Vivian Qiu, 2023, Slow Making exhibition, Curated by Andari Suherlan, First Site Gallery, RMIT Galleries. Photo by Sebastian Kainey.
Vivian Qiu, Life Line, 2023, Slow Making at First Site Gallery, RMIT Galleries, Curated by Andari Suherlan. Photography by Sebastian Kainey.
Everyone has a story to tell, big or small.
Collecting old T-shirts from people Vivian has come across in her life, she cuts T-shirts into long strips and weaves them into a life line cord.
People we’ve met influences us. We recognize the influences or marks they have left in us, and we move on with gratitude.
In the Slow Making exhibition 2023, we invited participants to join us and braid the Life Line. While braiding this Life Line, we want people to take a moment to appreciate all the people that we’ve come across in our life. They have been or are still there for a reason.
Photography by Damian Sullivan
This video was created as part of the Slow Making exhibition at RMIT First Site Gallery in 2023.
Slow Making is a collection of encounters made up of personal stories articulated and explored through materiality and social engagement. Curated by Andari Suherlan, the show explores the works of jewellery artist Vivian Qiu in collaboration with interior designers Suriana and Leslie Ham.
Slow Making investigates relationships between ways of looking and creating that promote mindfulness and well-being in a desensitised digital and post-pandemic age.