Watch Out
Sheng-Wen Lo
Watch Out is a large-scale treasure hunting game deployed in the natural surroundings of Arles. In the Natural Regional Parks of Camargue and Alpilles, collisions with motor vehicles kill many animals every day, including birds, mammals, reptiles and insects. The local government has been encouraging drivers to slow down, but often to no avail. In response, I created a treasure hunt – a temporary scenario to re-establish the line of sight between humans and the surrounding environment. With jewellery designer Ching-Hui Yang (TW/NL), we crafted ten unique pieces based on roadkill discovered in these regions, placing them near the sites where the animals were found. The overall jewellery collection has an estimated market value of over €50,000, and each piece becomes the property of whoever finds it.
Sheng-Wen Lo (b. 1987) was born in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, and lives and works in Leiden, the Netherlands. Lo's works investigate the relationships between non-humans and contemporary society through a range of media, including images, installations, and games. He is an alumnus of the Rijksakademie, Amsterdam, and received an MSc in Computer Science from National Taiwan University. His works have been shown at Foam and World Press Photo in the Netherlands; The International Center of Photography in the USA; MMCA in South Korea; The National Gallery of Victoria in Australia; and the Taiwan Biennial, Taiwan. He was selected as a Foam Talent in 2021, and has received fellowships from De Nederlandsche Bank and the Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds/Prince Claus Fund. Lo is represented by Avocado Art Lab, Taipei.
Down
While shopping for winter jackets, I realised that it’s impossible for me to tell where exactly the feathers of mass-produced down jackets came from. Therefore, I attempted to make my own down jacket in a relatively harmless way: by manually collecting the goose feathers on the grounds in parks, riverbanks and forests near my house in Breda, the Netherlands.
After two months of collecting, cleaning, filling and sewing, the jacket was put to the test over three weeks in the High Arctic – to see if I could survive. During a sailing expedition of The Arctic Circle Residency, I made 21 landings and glacier hikes wearing only this jacket and minimal base layers. A how-to guide – A Step by Step Guide for Making Your Own Down Jacket – was designed based on my experiences to allow everyone to make a similar garment where they live.