$100 frame
Artist Statement
这是一个Artist Multiples作品。 Edition of 3。
其中“3/3”已出售。
售价$100/frame。
多伦多大学书店曾以$2（大约￥10-13）的价格向学生出售一个一次性医用口罩。一个以学费高昂而著称的学校在这种世界性灾难期间不帮助学生的同时还希望从中获利。为了嘲讽这个事件，我做了一个充满了各类防护COVID-19必需品的相框，并给予了它100加元的天价。
在每一个被0.25加元可封口塑料袋套住的这个3加元的相框中，含有：一只2加元来自多伦多大学书店的口罩，一只0.12加元的一次性塑胶手套，一瓶2.29加元的免洗洗手液，一袋0.62加元的VC泡腾片。这个袋子已用0.12加元的标准70%酒精进行消毒。
可封口塑料袋呈几乎真空状，以此引出这一次COVID-19最为明显的一个症状：呼吸困难。
这并不是儿戏，却在被太多人不重视。
这个时期里，有人痛有人悲，同时也有人在赚人命钱赚得不亦乐乎。
愿所有人平安。
Artist Multiples, edition of 3.
3/3 sold.
Price: $100/frame
I wanted to make a work that has no meanings and would just be something simply funny. Although something came into sight, and I had this call in my mind to make something about it. My multiples are frames with the same things stuffed inside. These frames were photo frames, they were supposed to contain a specific moment of someone’s life within it. So I decided to contain this ‘moment’ of the current issue, on what is happening within the societies.
January 2020, the Novel (New) Coronavirus has outbreak within Wuhan, China. Thousands of people were having similar symptoms, fever, cough and shortness of breath. And these symptoms may appear between 2-14 days after affected. Millions of people rushed out of Wuhan before this city was banned from people going in and out freely. Soon, China and the rest of the world have found other patients with the same symptoms. A global emergency of 2019-nCoV has been confirmed by World Health Organization. There are racism within and outside of China towards citizens of Wuhan and Chinese citizens. Prices of all kinds of masks and other medical related items were increased, and were out of stock everywhere in several hours. Due to the situation, many doctors or nurses in Wuhan do not have supplies like masks and protection suits. Some people are donating towards the hospitals within Wuhan city, some people were selling at an extremely high price, some people even went to other countries for all kinds of available masks. Everything is in a mess. Until Jan.31st 2020, Toronto had two confirmed patients with 2019-nCoV. Within one day, all masks and 70% alcohol were out of stock within all Shoppers and Canadian tire, even those masks that were purposely made for protections from dust, as well as 99% alcohol which is not useful for killing bacterias. According to friends, University of Waterloo started handing out face masks to students for free.
On January 30th 2020, there were two images of piles of boxes of face masks within the University of Toronto Bookstore started to circulate online. $2 for one surgical face mask and $8 for a N95 face mask, or $100 and $160 each box. According to the responses from UofT Bookstore, these were sold to them within this high price, and they are not making any profits from this. Although on the same day, I was able to find websites that carried way cheaper masks at the same level of quality and protection.
Many students were angry about the fact that our university is ripping us off after asking for a huge amount of money as tuition. Many were laughing on how expansive these face masks are. Anyhow, these sold out in one day. On January 31st 2020, when I visited at noon, they were already all sold out. So I had to purchase from someone that bought from the Bookstore with the same price. And this process itself was very interesting for me to experience. The hand sanitizers were out of stock too, so I had to go into three different Shoppers in order to find these.
The blue paper sign is mocking the presence of the UofT Bookstore sign shown within the pictures. The zip seal bag is in vacuum, to represent the symptoms appeared on the patients, the shortness of breath eventually lead to death due to lacking of oxygen. It is something really serious, thousands of people have died and are still dying. Yet there are people who are making profit out of others, those who are in fear, who are in need of these supplies, and who are trying to survive through this global emergency. I wanted this to be an ironic piece, and I hope it is.
Last two images were found online.
Other photos credit to yuminghee
FEB 2020
yuminghee