Beyond the Border: Tide
A Masterpiece Dedicated to Children of the World

Invited by the well-known Japanese curator Fram Kitagawa, DADA IDEA’s art director Lin Shuen-Long has repeatedly participated in the Setouchi Triennale in Japan, where he created the groundbreaking series of “Beyond the Border” together with the DADA IDEA team.

In this series, Beyond the Border: Tide (2016), a.k.a. “Children of the World”, was conceived by Lin Shuen-Long in response to a photo of a Syrian boy lying on the beach. The work comprises 196 statues of children shaped using local materials like sea sand and brown sugar.

196 is the number of the countries recognized by Japan. Each statue is sculpted following the features of the people to which the child belongs. The statues respectively face toward their motherland, with the latitudes and longitudes of their countries inscribed on their backs.

In “Beyond the Border: Tide”, the children statues were soaked by the tranquil tides and gradually melted in weathering, as if returning to the ocean symbolizing the mother’s body, before finally revealing a white rose hidden in the core of their bodies.
Related link: Coverage on NTIFO journal (in Chinese)