Xinran Huang
Pymble Ladies' College
HOUSE OF CARDS
Collection of Work
Acrylic paint, foamcore board, photos printed on rag paper
My body of work, inspired by the remnants of my mother’s childhood home in rural Wuhan, Hubei Province, China, conveys personal history, cultural memory and socioeconomic reflections. Many historically rich houses have been demolished in China, echoing a global trend where progress often comes at the cost of heritage. Like a ‘house of cards’, the sculpture represents the fragile balance between preserving the past and embracing the future. My work examines the impermanence of physical structures and the socioeconomic forces shaping our environments. It invites the audience to peer through metaphorical keyholes, finding reflections in the interplay of light and shadow.
Marker's Commentary
This body of work, House of Cards presents a series of photographs capturing abandoned domestic interiors and a small, hand-built wooden structure evoking memories of a home. Each image reveals a fragment of space through slightly ajar doorways, as if peering into half-remembered moments. Natural light spills through windows, casting a soft glow that animates forgotten objects and deepens the sense of absence.
The constructed house, intimate and deliberate in its simplicity, becomes a stand-in for a space like a classroom. Inside, worn stools, modest tables and a line of coat hangers suggest the presence of lives once lived within its green-painted walls, the colour fading halfway up as if time itself had drawn the line. Together, these images speak to memory and impermanence, to the architecture of learning and the fragility of childhood spaces. They invite the audience to step into the in-between, where presence meets absence, and the past lingers quietly behind each open door.