Arts Journal

If you visit the solo exhibition of Debbie Lin, you'll get a can with details about the "punctum" exhibition printed on it. It's for you to bring home. Once you've done that, open it up and cherish the moment. Because it's your reaction that Lin is after. She calls the moment "punctum," which is a point in time that has affected or caused reaction in a person.

The can contains dissected body parts -- of a doll -- suspended in a sea of jelly. Her exhibition is about the "punctum" in life, the images or visions that she remembers from dreams and memories. The series consists of dolls with their heads separated from their bodies, and very often, the bodies are in plastic jars. It is a metaphor for the cultural disorientation and disillusion for her homeland that she could not fully recognize anymore after returning from eight years in California. Her memories of Taiwan, symbolized by the head, are so different from today's reality. They have been severed, in a sense, from reality -- or the body.

To create the ethereal, dreamlike nature of the exhibit, the 30-year-old artist has installed a display case with the jars in it. Three of them are open, revealing the dissected doll parts soaking in water. Dry ice is added every half-hour to produce a rising misty white vapor. Lin believes the mist creates the feeling of a dream or memory unfolding.

In addition to the installation, there is a punctum series of five lithographs, inspired by one of her dreams. There is also a "blinking/projection" series of nine etchings using pictures from the past to recall memories that have profound meaning to her.

Every one of the etchings has a unique story to tell, such as that of her illiterate grandmother who had an enormous influence on her. It is perhaps the woman's simple creativity and determination, which compensated for her poor education, that inspired Lin. And the artist has brought forth simple, but vivid, memories to illustrate her grandmother's matter-of-fact nature in overcoming difficulties.

For instance, Lin remembers how her grandmother used to draw pictures next to phone numbers to identify whom the numbers belonged to. A chicken was drawn next to the chicken vendor, a car next to the taxi man. "It's hard to imagine how much she had shouldered to support a large family," said Lin. "She tried always to survive."

That kind of spirit, unfaltering even in the face of adversity, is what Lin remembers well. It is also a main theme of the series that focuses on a search for self-identity.