FOON SHAM : : : THE STORY

Nothing Hands-Off About This Installation
The Washington Post

October 16, 2007
Eileen Rivers

On the surface, "Flow: The Landscape of Migration" looks pretty simplistic: five cones, each about six feet tall, spread across the floor of the Greater Reston Arts Center. But to sculptor Foon Sham, the installation is much more. It's a chance for the public to participate in the creation of an original artwork, to have what Sham calls an "ongoing dialogue" with the artist.

Each cone is made of a different material -- wax, plastic foam, stacked cups of water, grass and wood. And Sham wants each to be altered any way visitors see fit, using objects he has provided -- small wooden blocks, candles, nails, cups of grass and water. On a recent afternoon, Elizabeth Vandenburg gave it a try. The Reston stay-at-home mom placed wooden blocks in a straight line between the wax and wood cones. Moments later she pushed several nails into the bottom of another cone. The experience was "awe-inspiring," said Vandenburg, who noted that "sometimes art in a museum can seem so lofty." Sham's piece is more enjoyable, she added, because "there's an artist who's telling you, 'Let's create something together.' " But even more important, Sham said, "Flow" gives him the chance to make a statement about immigration: When the public contributes to the piece, it's a metaphor for the contributions that immigrants have made to this country. "We all contribute pieces to the culture and to the land," said Sham, 53, who was born and raised in China. "Flow" is about "creating a common dialogue on the things we immigrants do." Sham visits the gallery once a week to shape the artwork left by the public. In front of the wooden cone, his nimble hands stack dozens of blocks -- some on their tops, others on their sides -- skillfully manipulating them in what looks like a complex Jenga game. Sham, who lives in Springfield, compares creating the work to the construction of the Great Wall of China -- with many people working together to complete an ambitious task. "I do have some control over the work," he said. "I work with whatever the public leaves for me. I react to what they do. They do something, I come back and do something else to the arrangement." As the installation grows, Sham hopes the objects -- which represent the Chinese elements of water, earth, metal, fire and wood -- will start to overlap.

"I will create a path so that people can walk through," the artist said, noting that he wants the piece to look like one large landscape. "The mixing of the elements is symbolic . . . of how we integrate to become one nation, mixing heritage, culture and beliefs together."

Destynee Blackshear, 7, jumped at the chance to interact with Sham's work. Visiting the museum with her mother, brother and a family friend, she started by poking a nail into the foam cone.

The girl's mother, Sophia Blackshear, recently moved to Reston and was looking for something for the family to do together. "It's wonderful," she said. Destynee "loves to draw. [Art] is her favorite thing to do. You can bring your kids for a half-hour and you and your child can interact." Though installation art is nothing new for Sham, interactive work is. In 2001 he began "Bio-Morphic Forms," a 13-foot-high double helix that people could walk through. He finished the structure, made of cherry, mulberry, maple and oak, in 2003. The work, with its 110 layers (one for each floor of the World Trade Center towers) became Sham's answer to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. It was exhibited at the World Bank in the District in 2003. He's also exhibited work in Mexico, Canada and Australia. But "Flow" is only the third project he's created that requires public input. Sham came to the United States in 1975 to study at the then California College of Arts and Crafts in Oakland and graduated with a bachelor's degree in fine arts. With its loose definitions of art, the college is where Sham found his niche. "The school," Sham said, "opened up a whole new world to me."

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