This sensory installation features fragrance misters filled with Chinese medicinal herbs, concealed behind reimagined lotus leaves and natural forms made from neon vinyl. The misters activate in response to visitors' movement, releasing scent as a subtle, ephemeral gesture. The work explores concealment, memory, and the reimagining of Chinese medicinal herbs—not as cures for illness, but as intangible agents of transformation and cultural expression.

 

The installation draws upon the aesthetics of concealment and revelation. The medicinal herbs themselves become shadow selves of their original form, and reflect on their origination as healing tools passed through generations. The act of hiding the misters behind stylized lotus leaves evokes the duality of public and private identity, of what is visible and what is withheld. The misters hide their source while offering their effects, transforming the environment through sensory subterfuge. The use of scent, a largely invisible and involuntary sense, mirrors the intangible ways that identity, memory, and survival operate within the Asian diaspora. These vapors mark an immaterial sovereignty—one not written in law or language, but inhaled and felt. Here, the herbs are no longer confined to the context of illness or old-world superstition—they flex, shift, and re-present themselves as speculative, ephemeral expressions of cultural agency.

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About Kelley Finley

Kelley Finley is an interdisciplinary artist working in sculpture, textiles, and performance. Each work begins as a response to what lingers: traces of presence, fragments of the body, repeated gestures, and the persistence of memory. She uses labor, rituals, talismans, and locations to explore mixed identity and embodied experience through segmentation. These diasporic experiences are venerated within sculptural, anthropomorphic containers, sacred spaces that embrace lineage and mend loss. Utilizing her body in often performative acts during fabrication, they become archives of ephemeral, private performances, reminiscent of her body or family members in various physical positions. Domestic materials like fabric, thread, and medicinal herbs actualize protection, grief, monumentalization, vulnerability, and personal shrines. Kelley has been exhibited internationally in Hong Kong and Italy, and throughout the U.S. She received her MFA from California College of the Arts and her BFA in Sculpture, B.S. in Art Education from Kutztown University.

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Kelley Finley：「鹽起，回甘」

這個感官裝置作品由香氛噴霧器組成，裡頭裝滿各式中醫藥材，並藏於螢光膠片製成的荷葉和自然形狀之後。這些噴霧器會因應參觀者的動作而啟動，釋出香氣，作為一種含蓄而短暫的姿勢。本作品探究隱匿和記憶，並重新將中醫藥材想像為轉化和文化表達的無形中介，而非針對病症的藥方。

 

本裝置參考了隱蔽和顯露的美學概念。藥材本身成為了它原來形態的陰影自我，反思其作為代代相傳的治療工具的起源。把噴霧器藏於風格化的荷葉後面則突顯公共和私人身份的雙重性，包括何者為顯、何者為隱。噴霧器把香源藏起來同時發揮效果，施展感官巧計，轉化環境。香氣很大程度上是肉眼看不見的非自主感受，與亞裔離散族群當中的身份、記憶和求存的無形機制，如出一轍。這些香氛宣告了某種非物質性的主權——它不是以法律或文字記載，而是被吸入和感受。在此，藥材再不狹隘地置於疾患或舊世界迷信的背景下，反之，它伸縮、變形、重新展現自我，作為文化能動性中，充滿預測性而又一閃即逝的表達方式。

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Kelley Finley 是跨界別藝術家，其創作橫跨雕塑、紡織和表演的領域。她每一件作品都是對縈繞之物的回應：存在的痕跡、身體的碎片、重複的手勢，以及揮之不去的回憶。她利用勞力、儀式、符咒和場域，以分割的方式探索混雜的身分認同，以及身體經驗的議題。擬人化的雕塑，和擁抱血脈紐帶、彌補缺失的神聖空間，往往是對離散經驗的致敬。創作時，她經常利用自己的身體作出操演性（performative）的行為，成為稍縱即逝而又私人的表演，記錄著她的驅體及其家人各式各樣的身體形態。家用物品例如布料、縫紉線和草藥往往成為保護、哀悼、紀念、脆弱和個人神壇的具體化身。Kelley 的作品曾於國內外展出，包括香港、意大利及美國多處。她是加州藝術學院藝術碩士，同時持有賓夕凡尼亞庫茨敦大學雕塑藝術學士以及藝術教育學士學位。