Fountain (2024)

Wood, aluminium, LED light, fountain pumps, vinyl tubing, copper nozzles, water, toilets

Two toilets are displayed shooting water into one another through clear vinyl tubing fitted with copper nozzles. They sit atop an elongated aluminium plinth, lit by a faint LED glow. Despite the accuracy of their aim, the surrounding floor is drenched in splatter.

On opening night, visitors climbed a steep staircase toward the sound of rushing water. Many reported feelings of anticipation and anxiety as the noise grew louder, clutching the rails in expectation of a burst pipe or waterfall. Relief—or absurdity—washed over them at the sight of the two fountains locked in mutual spray.

Some believed the work was a warning tale, encouraging men to piss sitting down. I was thinking instead about bromance: the intimacy of boys “crossing streams” before the reckoning of their sex, still intact with innocence, untouched by morality.

In East Asia, Boys’ Love content imagines romance between men without the dynamics of heterosexuality. This playful fantasy, unbounded by the female body, leaves room for tenderness that is often absent elsewhere. Similarly, men’s appetite for lesbian porn may signal a desire to escape the weight of masculinity—the expectations of performance and control.

Fountain (2024) plays with these projections. The crossing of streams becomes comic, phallic, and innocent all at once. At home, water is believed to bring good energy, to keep flows of life moving. For me, this fountain is also a wishing well: an attempt to unclog the “constipated heart,” to release the restraints one puts on themselves, and to make room for cyclical change.