Sustained

Bai worked with several cafés to collect used coffee grounds, dealing with the practical problems of transport, drying, and storage. Rather than transforming waste into an object that deliberately appears upgraded or refined, he mixed the grounds with resin and cast them back into compressed, crumpled forms based on discarded coffee packaging, preserving the visual state of waste.

These apparently discarded forms are also given openings and the function of vases, distributed across a floor covered with loose coffee grounds. Once fresh flowers are inserted, an object first read as rubbish acquires another use and another definition. The freshness, care, and short life of flowers sit in direct contrast with the form left after consumption.

Sustained is therefore not simply about recycling or giving waste a second use. It is concerned with how the same material changes definition through form, function, and assigned use. During the exhibition the flowers bloom and wither while the resin-bound waste form persists, placing different durations of material, function, and meaning within the title’s idea of continuity.