MUM, NO!
EGG, HAMMER, CANDLE, COTTON THREAD, NAILS, OIL ON CANVAS, WOOD PANEL
30x30x28cm
INSTALLATION
2021

In the parent-child relationship, my mother's personality was always cloudy, exploding over the slightest insignificant thing. I was performing everything to her liking and deep down I was subliminally controlled, which gradually led me to develop an ingratiating personality. As a child I rejected going home, the thought of going home made me anxious, nervous and scared, not wanting to face what I had to endure alone.During this experience, I often wondered: what kind of relationship did parents have with their children? How does the "chicken child" come about? What kind of psychological changes do children experience when they have to endure this? What are the reasons for the distortion of the parent-child relationship? The term "chicken child" means a child who is constantly being told to study and work hard. These children are often born into middle-class families and are given training by their parents from an early age. The term "chicken blood" originates from the "chicken blood therapy" once circulated, and is mostly used to flirt with and satirise certain people who are mentally hyperactive and have a state bordering on madness and obsession. Data shows that between 2010 and 2020, the number of people graduating from university each year soared from 5.754 million to a record 8.74 million. A German study shows that the advantages of a chicken education only last until about fourth grade, and that children's behaviour patterns are permanently affected.

Inspired by the name 'Chicken Child' and Sarah Lucas' work with eggs, I also used eggs as the main material for my piece 'Mum, No!’ .The candle is lit and as it burns, the thin line connecting the candle to the hammer becomes precarious; the line connecting the candle to the hammer is both the node of kinetic energy and the end of its demise. In my waiting and speculation as to when the hammer will fall, when the egg will be smashed, and whether the hammer will hit the egg; this physical structure expresses the tension and vulnerability between the calm and the sudden outburst that the chicken boy is in when he spends his daily time with his parents. There is a constant pull between the precarious brokenness and the slow-burning sense of resilience. Between several seemingly unconnected objects, I have tried to create a constant contradiction that undercurrents, stretches and grows, interlocking in this structural arrangement. At one point, the thin threads struggling to hold the hammer together are burnt, and the egg breaks and flows onto the canvas. This also seems to foreshadow the eventual end of the chicken child under this education.