“Devil’s Ivy” is a 10 minute virtual reality film, transformed by Wa’s drawings, which interrogates the increasingly blurred lines between truth and imagination during the COVID-19 pandemic. It takes the viewer on a surreal trip to the city of Wuhan under lockdown, onto the virus infected cruise ship, The Diamond Princess, and the mass grave on Hart Island in New York.
As the invisible virus morphs into bizarre symbolic elements, it reveals issues embedded into the fabric of society long before the contagion, such as public surveillance and social distrust. The internet overflowed with contradictory narratives, and misinformation has rendered the world both seemingly accessible while at the same time bewilderingly labyrinthine, leaving each individual with one’s own limited imagination of the ever-morphing reality.
The name of the work comes from the commonplace vine, “Devil’s Ivy,” which a girl in Wuhan buys during lockdown as the plant is nearly impossible to kill, and stays green even when kept in the dark.
"Devil's Ivy" series was premiered at the Busan Biennale 2020, curated by Jacob Fabricius, titled "Words at an Exhibition - an exhibition in ten chapters and five poems", which ended on November 8, 2020.
