Going Home — Shang-Yi Hua

Each pinecone took about forty minutes to carefully deconstruct, and as I stripped these seed pods I thought of the continuity of life that they represent. Made of delicate, individual seeds, the pinecones are part of a larger life cycle that can result in a beautiful tree that lives for decades. They are just as likely to be crushed or discarded, but the enduring truth of the species lives on. These small sculptures speak to the enormous potential and the fragility of human life, and the acts of faith and love that connect us to one another.

“As for man, his days are as grass: as a flower of the field, so he flourisheth. For the wind passeth over it, and it is gone; and the place thereof shall know it no more.” Psalm 103:15