Wonderland Intersection
This work responds to the 2018 Quangang Petrochemical Spill in China, where 69.1 tons of C9 aromatic hydrocarbons leaked into coastal waters from a chemical tanker. The pollution immediately contaminated fishing villages mere meters away, dissolving polystyrene fishing boats with its corrosive properties and burning fishermen's skin. After cleanup crews absorbed surface oil with felt pads and let the remnants disperse with the tides, was the crisis truly resolved? This incident transcends environmental disaster—it embodies the power struggle between villages and industrial complexes.
Along petrochemical-choked coastlines, we must ask: Where are the fishermen's voices? What becomes of their communities? These truths remain submerged in silence. The artwork reimagines oyster mushrooms (known for degrading petroleum) as a mycoremediation vessel—a fungal boat embodying villagers' hopes for restoration. An elderly fisherman pilots this fragile craft toward polluted zones, rowing inch by inch toward petrochemical plants. The tiny mushroom boat, dwarfed by endless industrial structures and the vast sea, renders its purification efforts poignantly futile. This tension between fragility and persistence, between doomed resistance and unyielding will, forms the work's core, with fungi becoming both activist and witness.
Titled Fairyland Intersection Station after a local bus stop surrounded by petrochemical plants, the work exposes the bitter irony of industrial "fairylands"—where mythic names collide with ecological devastation.