For such a long time, people have been asking me how I developed Chairman Deng Xiaoping’s portrait on chopsticks of AsMuchAsYouLike installation. Well, here you go. I have done so many researches on image of Chairman Deng Xiaoping; however, I couldn’t find a nice simplified version one. It is interesting to know that Chairman Deng  doesn’t like himself to be Chairman Mao who is worshiped by many people and treated as God. Therefore, you rarely find any article published his symblic image. (or you call iconic image) The only image I found is his photo taken when he visited Shenzhen which is the first city became economic special zone due to his Open and Reform policy. Only this image has significant symbolic meaning to Chinese people. So I have done some photoshop works and simplified a bit.

For publication on this image, please contact whchen@whchen.com

关于大声展的参展作品《韧用》有两个小问题，就代表观众和读者问您了。 

问题1，如果用简单直白的语言来表示，《韧用》想要向观众表达什么？
问题2，《韧用》是针对什么社会或生活问题而创作的？

此致 祝愉快～～～

李有为

09.06

From: 海亮和傅宗文
To: 李有为
Subject: Re:来自《缤纷》李有为，关于大声展
Date: Fri, 7 Sep 2007 12:35:10 +0800 (CST)  李有为， 

你好，谢谢你的采访。

韧用有两个出发点，而这两个出发点也同时回答了您所要问的问题； 

1)       第一个出发点是在探讨一次性筷子与其它相关联物体在同一个雕塑所能产生的效果。因此在同一件雕塑上我们还加入了筷子的包装纸板盒以及一块圆形的桌面作为制作材料。我们将纸板横放在桌面上，然后把筷子插入纸板孔形成邓小平肖像。(所有选择的材料都是息息相关的。) 

2)       第二个出发点是在探讨一次性筷子与我们的日常生活关系。由于邓主席的‘改革开放’ 给国内外经济带来了不小的冲击，经济的腾飞也给社会带来了负作用和副产品。饮食被视为与生活和经济息息相关，一次性筷子也是这种快速生活步伐的副产品。 作品本身用一次性筷子的邓小平像浓缩概括了中国的快速发展时期，同时也希望引起观众思考及辩论在可持续发展时期新的可能性。引起对一些日常事物及其‘文化承载’ 的转变的关注；也希望他们能体会到一些极平凡事物的不平凡一面。其实，在日常生活中我们常常会发现许多‘物尽其用’ 的生活哲学。 

(这与我和傅宗文对材料性及其文化形式感性趣相关；同时也十分吻合大声展的‘创意生活’ 主题。)电话里我已经跟你解释了我们原来展览的计划，这里还包括群众参与，筷子制作的一些产品家具；很可惜这些都没有实现。这里我就不再详细解释。你可以比较一下我们的作品说明便知道。这里不得不解释: 由于条件的限制以及为了展览的按时展出，最后使用的筷子是新的；这是与我们的初衷相违背的。许多观众都会对此有所疑问。 

祝好，

海亮和傅宗文

070906

Between 21 July – 5 Aug 07, Chong Boon Pok will be showing his work in an art festival called “Notthatbalai 2007 ” in kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The art festival is organized by a group of individual who was said from “diverse art disciplines and social background who are passionate about art, embodying the spirit of sharing and giving”. More ……

One of the Notthatbalai 2007 art festival publicity materials

我们会有一些详细的工作日记陆续放上网上，所以敬请关注页面下边的新贴。

We spend our spare time to update the website and that causes update process pretty slow therefore some of posts are actually backward referred to few days ago. New posts won’t be on the top of page. We will continue to upload photos and diaries during Guangzhou period. Please scroll down to find the new posts.

Below is the final version of artists’ statement for the exhibition  

As Much As You Like_韧用  

by William Hailiang Chen & Chong Boon Pok
Materials: cardboard, dinning table-top, Perspex, disposable chopsticks and it’s paper pocket

This is a collaborative project between William Hailiang Chen and Chong Boon Pok. Chen is from China and is a graduate from the Architectural Association School practicing in London; Pok is from Malaysia and is currently a fine art, practice-based research student at the London Metropolitan University. Chen is interested on the environmental sustainability issue in relation to the transformation of objects and materiality. Pok is interested in the idea of attentiveness to the everyday; his work as a whole explores the as-it-is-ness of things, as well as the interconnectedness between objects and people.

As Much As You Like developed from Pok’s Assemblage of Used Disposable Chopsticks, 2000. The title translated into Chinese as ‘韧用‘, the word ’韧’ has two meanings: Firstly, it’s pronunciation is the same as ‘任‘ which has the meaning of no tie. Secondly,’ 韧’ also means durable or long lasting. While in English, ‘As Much As You Like’ has connotations of the buffet style served in some UK restaurants, where diners pay a fixed price to “eat as much as you like”.

The initial proposal of this installation involved public participation in which, the artists would invite the public to withdraw the chopsticks from a pre-made, lantern shaped sculpture to use for their meals in the food court next to the exhibition space. The public then made use of the used-chopsticks to form a pie-shaped piece of furniture. Due to the limited time and lack of sponsors, the artists decided to abandon this process.

This experimental sculpture symbolically portrays China today after chairman Deng’s ‘reform and open to the world’ policy. His policies have brought China into a new era of world influence. Disposable chopsticks have a very short life span; we throw them away immediately after finishing our meal. This project combines both Chen and Pok’s interests, where they observe the relationship of this object with us within this temporal environment and time frame, searching for ways to make a connection and expand the life span of the chopstick and its accompanying paper pocket. Trapped between controllable and uncontrollable, applicable and non-applicable, they are trying to allow dialogs to expand among the chosen materials and its consumers. Arguably, the work may be seen as a cross between architectural form and sculptural form.

For more information about the project, please visit project’s blog: http://www.asmuchasyoulike.org/

韧用  

陈海亮 & 傅宗文  

材料: 纸板，乳胶，钢丝绳，鱼绳，绵线，木制餐桌，有机玻璃，一次性筷子及其包装纸套   

 ‘韧用‘是建筑师陈海亮和艺术家傅宗文一起合作为07大声展特制的现场装置作品。陈海亮，来自中国大陆，毕业于英国伦敦建筑联盟学校，现在伦敦工作；傅宗文，来自马来西亚，目前正在伦敦城市攻读艺术博士学位。陈海亮对物质材料在可持续发展及使用中所带来文化形式上的转变感兴趣。傅宗文的作品主题则专注于日常生活，其作品贯用日常的物与事探索物体本身持有的原本性以及物与人之间的相关联性；促使理解物与物，人与物之间共享的天地。

本装置的概念源发于傅宗文2000年的一件雕塑作品“弃用的一次性筷子”。“韧”在本作品的中文标题“‘韧用”中具有双重寓意: 1. 取同音字“任”，有任意、随意使用之意；2. 取其本义中的耐用、反复多次的使用。二者合一，是为“韧用”。其英文标题“As Much As You Like”取自英国中餐馆的一种餐饮方式―自助餐―固定的价格“随您任意吃”。 

在此，我们向大声展的志愿者表示衷心感谢；没有大家的帮助，我们将不会完成这惟妙惟肖的肖像。

杨茜雅，杨乔羽，柯玉婷，魏昀，何丹丹，高云，陈达琳，陈贤鹏，罗斌，梁碧筠，关伟棠，陈震宇，伍妤，白颖，张俊，黄懿德，冼诗颖，纪家泉，李建业，赵智?. (名字先后是随意排列)

十分抱歉，有个别人的人名我打字打不出来，不对之处敬请告知。还有许多人未留下芳名，请认识的互相转告。我们原本很希望和所有志愿人员合影留念的。

由于我们忙于赶制作品，很多重要环节我们都没有摄影记录；如果大家有任何照片有关我们作品的以及与我们合影的照片，请e-mail到如下信箱:

info@asmuchasyoulike.org

以上照片来自大声展官方网站，07大声展WHO’S WHO-2

阅读全文Read_more

十有八九的观众会用他们的手机拍摄留念；这是大多数观众对作品的第一典型反应。许多‘美女’还常常与作品合影留念。

This photo was taken while the stunned audience were staring the ‘picture’ which the material is made of cardboard and chopsticks. 这张照片特有意思，这观众被纸板和筷子的材料所惊呆。

Inevitably, everyone will have a closed look. 每一人都免不了走近看看。

This is often forgotten part of installation, it usually toke a while for people to realise why this ‘lantern’ has a connection with the image ‘pie’ . Children felt very curious to spin around the lantern. Unfortunately, for safety reason we have to request GIL to make sure not to let people touch the art work.

甚至我们自己也被这二维图像所带来的三维视觉享受所惊讶。视觉角度的不同变换，使得在某一时刻观众可以清晰地感受到邓小平主席的存在。二维的图像活灵活现。

每个观众的解读体会都是不一样的，常常听到的是他们争论哪一角度更像小平。