Please Take One: Invasive Species is an installation, a stack of paper that includes drawings of invasive species from 15 countries.  It’s a re-contextualization of my invasive species series 3: Find Them.

 

Each drawing represents one nation, and several species repeat to indicate their presence in multiple countries.  The invasive species overlap each other to show their power or influence at varied scales.  I photocopied my initial drawings onto 10,000 sheets of A4 paper, with further a repeated background information of the country and the name invasive species.

 

I created this work, because I wanted to hide the invasive species’ appearances. We did not pay attention on the existence of invasive species until a serious issue causing. Visitors can only see the edges, which implied the issues surrounding invasive species. The audience will only know what they are until they take a sheet. I added some blank paper, which indicate the distance between countries and the suggestion of further potential occupying. Natural curves appeared while paper being added, bringing an aesthetically gesture to this sculpture.  Visitors are welcomed to take sheets with them. The Interactivity (the participation of the audience) changed my work’s clean display form and conceptually delivered an intimation that invasive species are primarily spread by human activities.