Kewen Dai
Wakey Wakey, 2023
single channel video
'Wakey Wakey' is a short film edited from found footage. It is a glimpse of the passion and concern Dai feels for our earthly home, particularly the ocean. Inspired by a nightmare recurring throughout their childhood, the film features the deterioration of nature largely consequential of irresponsible human behaviors, and the vulnerability of humanity as a result.
Although environmental anxiety can be more deep-rooted than we imagine, it is often neglected on the exterior of the mind after a brief, subconscious obsession, a pattern implied by the film’s interconnected and cyclic beginning and ending. Was it all a paranoid dream, only to distract one from a peaceful reality? Cartoon characters, many instantly recognizable, are intertwined within the film as narratives of affinity, representing naïveté, nostalgia and sarcasm, alongside different species of natural life. A visual combination of brutal realism and childish fiction attacks capitalist brainwashing and public dismissiveness when facing global environmental challenges.
Kewen Dai's artistic practice is focused on painting, digital illustrations and moving images. The artist's main interests lie in classical aesthetics as well as developing creative ways to address contemporary concerns, particularly those that are environmental.
