The artist who created sculptures of each of the grandparents' village residents

In search of his origins, the American and Chinese descendant Warren King decided to travel to China to investigate the ancestors of his family, who left the East in the late 1960s. Little did he know that when they arrived there, the people of that he had heard all his life would inspire him to make a series of sculptures of greater significance than the distance that has kept them apart for the past five decades.

Called “Shaoxing Villagers, ” the project began to come to life 6 years after King's first trip to the Asian country. The artist was so well received by family members and locals - who nostalgically resembled his grandparents and stopped him on the street for news of them - that he decided to represent each one in life size on cardboard sculptures.

King's raw material at work also expresses the feelings involved in his experience in China. “The common, disposable materials are also related to the nature of the connections that tried to be rebuilt, ” he describes. "Forms are distracted, and the end result is not only about individuals, but also about attempts to understand them, " he adds. Following is the subtlety and symbolism of the essay: