Whether you’ve done it yourself or you’ve seen a video of someone doing it, we know that when you draw a circle around an ant or a spider, they completely lose the ability to recognise the fact that they are not physically trapped. Ants have poor vision and they rely on pheromone scent trails to locate resources or make their way back to the colony. By drawing a circle in the dirt or an ink boundary around them, it disrupts the ants’ directional orientation, making it virtually impossible for the little creatures to seek ways of moving onwards. We chuckle at the simple minds that fail to cross over the intangible boundary. In the meantime, people are separated by imaginary borders so-called ‘nations’, the ongoing debate within countries of policies about ‘illegal immigrants’, seemingly drawing a disassociation between natural human rights and the legality of immigration status.

It is an utterly irresponsible, apathetic phrase to say aloud- if I were you, one is speculating someone else’s life from an outsider’s perspective, a simple thought of the god-given ability to make different choices without the mature understanding of one’s upbringing, influences and education. ‘If I were Donald Trump, I wouldn’t start the war with Iran, I would’ve focused on the living quality of Americans.’ The irony is, if you were brought up in his wealthy background, privileged education and the out-of-touch upper-class social circle, you would most likely be the exact same type of wannabe dictator as him, if not worse. Economic status limits the perimetre of one’s imagination; the working class simply cannot comprehend the rationale behind the process of authoritarian decision-making.

I was lucky enough to escape from the collapsing state of Hong Kong and pursue my artistic development in England, but for many people (in Hong Kong), it is almost like a fairy tale to fathom about leaving their roots, mostly because of financial restrictions, with a minimum wage of less than 4 British pounds it is hard to imagine a life outside the basis of survival, when people struggle to even own the house they live in (crowning to be the one city with highest average property price, around 30% of the population rents their homes instead of thinking about buying a property). For those who are fortunate enough to lift the courage to abandon the life they built and move to a foreign country, we had to relearn a new language, adapt to a new culinary culture, make new social circles and accept the fact that on a random Friday evening you would have to endure racial slurs shouted at you by a drunk on a busy road. How many people are comfortable with making these life changes? There is also a shameful trend among some ‘patriotic’ HongKongers having a derogatory attitude towards people who chose to leave their home soil, but aren’t we all just trying our hardest to live the best lives we can?

Ants can't jump, and physicians often use ants as the example to depict the difference between two-dimensional and three-dimensional worlds (that poor ant that got placed on the Möbius strip). I made this connection of ants being illustrated on a canvas, while the person who is looking at this painting, is constantly being trapped in this imaginary border. Now who is the silly one?