Fold the Blue Together

The pivot of this folding fan falls beyond the lower edge of the screen, and its outer rim extends past the top as well. The viewer does not see an object fully put on display, only the way it is occupying the field of view: thirteen folded planes open from the same point, and the blue is pushed to one side, becoming another shape just as hard.

Only the vermilion outer rib in the image can be grasped. Drag it along the pivot, and the fan surface opens and closes; the black outer rib on the other side remains still. What the hand moves is a single edge, but what changes is not a local parameter; it is where the whole expanse of blue can still remain. After release, the hinge keeps a brief rebound. When no one touches it, it bears only a small, continuous pressure, without performing an opening-and-closing act on the viewer’s behalf.

The first attempt was to search between two layers of fine mesh for a third mesh that had not been drawn, but the screen yielded only a beautiful and hollow pattern. So the work retreated to a more concrete action: grasp, unfold, close. There is no diagram here to identify, and no rule waiting to be deciphered. Each time the fan surface gains an area, the surrounding blue must grow back into a shape.

When something is spread open, do we notice how much it has gained, or what it has forced its surroundings to give up?