2014
Stop-motion animation (mono, silent)
20′

This is a duo stop-motion animation. On the right, it shows a diminishing pastel, while the left reveals the development of a line-drawing on the landscape, simultaneously, line by line. It is based on a photo named Kwun Tong Town Centre from Wikipedia, which no longer looks the same due to an urban renewal program. In this work, the artist restricts the role of the animator, as the length of the animation is solely based on the consumption of the pastel. It also reveals her engagement with time via the process of consuming the pastel.

Substances and energy are unceasingly circulating. When the pastel in reality transforms into the scenery (Kwun Tong) on the paper, simultaneously, line by line, it forms a stop-motion animation in the virtual world. The animation records and carries energy. The artist spent half a year creating this animation. Every stroke drawn required documenting both the drawing and the pastel’s changes, repeated around 14,000 times to finish. The artist attempts to highlight the process of creating animation, which is a long meditative journey.

"Compression – Disintegration, Expansion – Merging. The repetition of the videos becomes a mantra showing how fleeting our actions are. Drawing – the first medium humans have used to express themselves. Lau Ching-wa impressively demonstrates with her work The Fading Piece that this medium has lost none of its topicality and relevance."
— Harald Kraemer, the 20th Incubator for Film & Visual Media in Asia (ifva), 2015