Eat Love is a consumable sculpture comprised of 958 candy hearts, each hand-stamped in edible ink with the phrase “i love you.” Presented in a glass bowl as an offering, viewers are invited to eat a candy, thereby participating in the literal consumption of love. The diminishing amount of candy provides a parallel to the degradation in quality of the photocopies.

Collectively, the installation considers how meaning is derived from romantic declarations, and whether or not such meaning can be preserved and valued when those proclamations are repeatedly performed. The work questions the greater motivation behind romantic declarations after such acts have already been monumentalized: do we repeatedly perform them because meaning can be continually derived from them, or because they have become a standard way of performing in relationships?

Installation views, Love in Translation, XPACE Cultural Centre, Nov/Dec 2011

Incomplete Love Puzzle is a colour jigsaw puzzle printed with the same image used in the photocopies. Originally containing 1,008 pieces (the standard number in a large puzzle), several key pieces have been removed, leaving 958 pieces to be assembled by visitors. The missing pieces disidentify the subjects, eliminating individuality and intimating a greater social practice surrounding the exchange of romantic declarations. Reproduced from an original image, like the photocopies, the jigsaw puzzle simultaneously monumentalizes and negates the original, and transforms a private, intimate moment into a public, group activity.

Installation views, Love in Translation, XPACE Cultural Centre, Nov/Dec 2011

Representing the lifespan of our relationship to the first time we exchanged ‘I love yous,’ the image is photocopied 958 times, with each photocopy successively copied from the previous one. By repeatedly photocopying the staged photograph, the original image and text disintegrate, referencing both the semantic evolution of those words and my fear of the degradation of the quality, meaning, and memory of romantic declarations through their repeated performance.

Installation views, Love in Translation, XPACE Cultural Centre, Nov/Dec 2011

(958) I Love You(s) is a multimedia installation that explores the layered implications behind the act of declaring one’s love to another. The inspiration for the work stems from being in a committed relationship for almost 3 years (more precisely, 958 days) without verbally declaring my love to my partner despite feeling the force of this expectation inherent in the progression of a romantic relationship.

An intimate moment where my partner and I exchange declarations for the first time was created and photographed. The result is a staged image containing the captioned text, ‘I love you.’ Using a photographic print, photocopies, a jigsaw puzzle, and candies, the installation investigates the meaning, validity, and power of the words, ‘I love you,’ and the evolution of their implications when those words are repeated over time.

Installation views, Love in Translation, XPACE Cultural Centre, Nov/Dec 2011