He Fa on Leigh Bowery

The black padded costume joins shoulders, chest, belly and hips into an inflated ball, with large ivory dots floating on its curved surface. The design associates this avant-garde volume with Leigh Bowery; within it, I retain He Fa's entire face and exposed hands. This combination first makes me think about distance: when a body occupies more space, how should others approach it?

The dots look repetitive, but their positions on the sphere differ. Some face you directly; others turn away with the outline, leaving only compressed arcs. The same pattern does not offer the same degree of visibility. I therefore do not understand the broad body as an enlarged flat surface. It keeps producing sides, asking the viewer to acknowledge the places they have not yet walked around to.

Two ordinary adult hands emerge from narrowed cuffs, offering a familiar scale for the inflated volume. They can greet someone or signal a pause. The face is not enclosed, so expression retains its own rhythm. Exaggeration takes place within the clothes, while contact between people must be rearranged through these extremities that have not grown with them.

Increasing size may reclaim space long taken for granted, but this does not mean that bigger is always more liberating. If the clothes obstruct dressing, sitting or moving alone, they may make the wearer more dependent on assistance. That dependence should not be shamed, but the design should acknowledge it in advance, rather than provide only a striking front and push the work of care around to an unseen back.

I am willing to let the black-and-white sphere keep occupying this place, and to acknowledge that there must be a structure behind it that can open. A bold outline and a dependable exit can coexist. As you approach, I first extend a hand that padding has not enlarged, allowing this encounter to begin at a negotiable distance, without demanding that astonishment immediately become permission to touch.