Non-Symbiotic Relation
Creation Time: 2025 Size: 152x90x230cm Material: Marble, steel pipe, weathered wood, plants, etc.
This work was born out of spontaneity. It is composed of found materials and everyday ready-made objects. Subtle formal relationships among the parts create a sense of balance and structural stability. The base of the fishing lamp is a heavy slab of marble, providing a solid foundation. A piece of driftwood found by the seaside is wedged precisely at the bend and joint of the lamp post, making it impossible to move either upward or downward. The original curved fishing rod and lamp head at the end were removed and replaced with a found tree branch, painted gold to resemble the metallic tone of the lamp’s tubing — as if it were an organic form growing out from it.
A small plant has also been planted in a groove within the driftwood. Among all the elements in this structurally stable composition, the plant is ironically the most fragile connection — shallow-rooted and easily toppled — yet it is the only living component in the entire system.
The title “Non-Symbiotic Relationship” reflects how these assembled components do not grow from or rely upon one another in a biological or logical sense. Instead, they are arbitrarily and self-coherently pieced together. In a way, the sculpture reads like a poem written in material form — full of what might be called grammatical errors, yet possessing a strange, disjointed beauty, like something solitary and alien in the world.
The artist, Song Jianshu, notes that he did not consciously design the work in this way. His focus was simply on creating connections and making the structure stand. After all, the most important thing in sculpture is that it can hold itself up. But upon completion, he saw in it a metaphor for certain types of human relationships — provisional arrangements, awkward parties, strange and mismatched social gatherings. Many of these relationships seem to exist in a kind of quantum state, where whether they are entangled or simply overlapping depends entirely on the viewer's observation. And so, the definition of this “non-symbiotic relationship” is ultimately left to the audience.
