the fool

Liyen Chong, ‘The Fool’, 2007. Chartwell Collection, Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, 2007. Image via Chartwell.

Jean Le Rond d’Alembert, after Andreas Vesalius, A human skeleton. Engraving by Benard, late 18th century, after a woodcut, 1543. Wellcome Library. Image via Wellcome Collection.

Liyen Chong uses her hair to ‘draw’ on cotton, resulting in this intricately embroidered figure titled The Fool. The pose is lifted from Vesalius’ book of human anatomy. Taking upward of thirty hours to complete, Chong stitches herself into an image of the dead with intense discipline.

This technique, which Chong learnt from her grandmother, has roots in the semi-devotional practice of embroidering hair in Buddhist imagery from China, as well as the Victorian penchant for incorporating the hair of a deceased loved one into jewellery. Hinting at the artist’s dual heritage, hair takes on meanings of cultural dislocation, memory and identity – plucked (materially, conceptually and literally) from the artist’s head.