Jiaqi Liao

The act of sculpting with clay becomes a meditative gesture, an instinctive choreography that traces the subtle textures of subconscious touch. Clay, as a natural material, bears memory within it — pliable and raw, it invites an intimate encounter with the unspoken, the unformed — the edge of the unconscious. Vegtable-tanned leather, with its own plasticity, captures the primal imprints of clay, cast in moulds of shifting clarity.

Leather is the skin of all life — the first boundary between self and world. It is the earliest garment, worn by humans and animals alike, beginning in the womb, where we are soft, unguarded, and unshaped. It holds the vulnerability of first contact, of sensing before knowing. When we are still in the womb, it is through the skin, through the vibrations of sound and the pressure of touch, that we begin to feel the world. This embryonic awareness — this tactile bond with the mother’s body — marks the beginning of our unconsciousness and consciousness, where the boundary between self and other begins to take form.