Eternal Return

Group show: Eternal Return. Richmond Art Gallery, Richmond, Canada. Sep - Nov 2017 (Featuring A Sealer).

“Artist Anchi Lin imbibes the performative qualities of her selected artefact in her work entitled A Sealer. Lin’s three channel installation circumnavigates the term preservation in relation to action, objects and memory”. Guest Curator, Sunshine Frère, 2017

“Eternal Return is an artistic response to Richmond Museum’s Migration Collection, wherein each artist chose artefacts from the museum’s collection to inspire their artwork. Anchi Lin creates a multi-channel video installation for her work, A Sealer. Lin was originally drawn to the mysterious quality of the can sealer handle. The handle is meant to accompany a can-sealing machine used in the 1940s to preserve food at home, but without the machine, it becomes an inviting puzzle. The first video in the installation shows Lin using the handle, turning it repeatedly as if the machine is there. In the second video, Lin is using a modern technique to seal food by shrink wrapping plastic onto bottles and other food items using the steam from a rice cooker, and the third video displays all the food items preserved in this way. The sealer holds personal associations for Lin, who as a child in Taiwan worked at a factory with her parents sealing bottles. The cycles of repetition in the rotation of the handle is mirrored in the monotony of the factory work she performed.” Richmond Art Gallery, 2017