The Spoon and Tongue
Medium: Procreate and Riso
Dimensions: 24 × 36 in.
Created during my first year at RISD, The Spoon and Tongue was inspired by an omikuji fortune I drew at a Buddhist temple while walking the Shikoku Pilgrimage in Japan. The text described the relationship between a spoon and a tongue: although the spoon touches food every day, it can never truly taste it. Only the tongue can know its flavor, texture, temperature, and countless other sensations.
For me, this simple metaphor speaks to the relationship between intellectual knowledge and embodied experience. It reflects my ongoing interest in the relationship between mind and body, culture and nature, and human-made systems and natural systems. The work asks whether true understanding comes from knowing about something, or from directly experiencing it, and how these seemingly opposing ways of knowing might coexist in balance and harmony.
