The stickers printed with animal images are something I have been collecting for years. Some of them are relics of childhood, while most are treasures I have gradually found in thrift stores, newsstands, hardware and grocery stores, or traditional stationery shops in recent years, following the visual imagery of early memories. Most of them are tucked away in the corners of unvisited store shelves. I carefully lifted up other obsolete items piled on top, delicately wiped away the dust from the plastic packaging surface, and they immediately regained their former charm.

Above the plastic bags, there is a header card printed with the words “MADE IN TAIWAN.” These stickers were mass-produced in Taiwan's early processing and manufacturing industry for export to Europe and America. While the exact production date cannot be precisely traced, it is estimated that they were made between the 1960s and 1980s. Currently, due to the influence of popular culture and commercial advertising, animal stickers featuring animated characters tend to adopt a simplified Chibi and Disneyfication style, which is more common in the market. In contrast to this, these early export stickers exhibit a more original and realistic aesthetic, sometimes even appropriating  found photos from zoophotography or paintings. Especially these animal series stickers, with their dreamy, vibrant colors,  hologram laser paper characteristics, and hazy visual effect, evoke a sense of nostalgia, capturing the way children perceived animals during a specific era.

For this series, I utilize ready-made stickers as medium of choice, and take extremely simple actions, tearing off the animal stickers one by one, leaving the base paper originally considered residue. While gazing at They Escaped from the Weightless Grassland, a rainbow glossy surface with fine dots flickers and changes when viewed from different angles. A background image with scenic landscapes is revealed, amid which are silhouettes of animals.  The symbolic negative space seems to imply the final traces of animals escaping from the artificial nature. They once laid or walked there, and we don't know where the galloping horses have fled to. Green becomes an imaginary wild field, and the compressed memories of lost childhood, along with countless recollections, return, all drawn in small frames.