Ma Qiusha

All my sharpness comes from your hardness, 2011

Ma Qiusha generally uses the vocabulary of ‘the new media’ to articulate her frequently personal, and sometimes nostalgic, themes. She has at her disposal a wide range of differentiated pictorial media languages: additionally, her videos are generally accompanied by watercolor pictures or by collages. In the video artwork All my sharpness comes from your hardness (2011) the viewer looks down upon the artist’s pure white ice skates, which scrape across the asphalt backwards and at great speed, grinding forcefully. In this combined audiovisual presentation, the naive, childlike subject matter is juxtaposed with a hard, uncomfortable soundscape, creating a powerful mixture of beauty and discomfort. Additionally, the tone of the grinding sound that steadily accompanies their progress over the asphalt of the road changes as the position of the blades changes. The ice skates and the road inflict wear and tear on one another reciprocally: the blades are sharpened or blunted, and, at the same time, they scratch the asphalt. Given its autobiographical links to the artist’s childhood, this artwork can be read as a multilayered metaphor for early impressions and for personal development within a family.