The Imperfect is Perfect

The beauty in imperfection in ceramics has become a rather popular trend in western art taking inspiration in the Japanese concept of WabiSabi. The concept WabiSabi delve into a deeper meaning about the traces of time revealed on the surface of objects, and as an object aged through our usage an unusual beauty will prevail. However the idea of WabiSabi seems to be misinterpreted in western arts and crafts, like a "chinese whisper”, to embrace the imperfections in the appearance and quality of an object and I find that very difficult to comprehend. Through this idea of accepting and embracing imperfection in their works, the standards of craft works are just deteriorating and techniques are not properly learnt. Instead many are focused on the end product, forsaking the quality be it good or poor. 

My journey during the making of the Pangolin-DNA gave me an enlightening realisation. While everyone would acknowledge that nothing in Nature’s appearance is perfect, Nature is actually perfect and we Human beings as Creators are the imperfect. During my research into how the body armour scales of a pangolin grows on its body, every scale fits well leaving little expose. If we are to look into a bigger picture, every Nature’s creation has a role and function to play, each knitted tightly; if we are to remove one element in an environment, the others will fail. There are still so much more Nature’s mystery that Human beings are unable to comprehend. So what is the role of Human beings? Are we armed with the role of destruction? Are we handed the role to create and protect elements of Nature? In our recent calls of climate crisis actions to protect our planetary bio-diversity has been encouraging, its main idea perhaps is to save humanity and nothing else, for we are playing the role of the Imperfect Creator trying to create a Perfect planet in our egoistic image. Nature is perfect and we humans are the imperfect, denigrating Nature’s imperfect aesthetic to boast our ego.