Collapse Imminent

This piece visualizes the journey of how I started ice hockey and eventually became a national player. Behind that ascent were countless doubts, the fears of being cut, the weight of academic pressure, and a constant sense of competition both on and off the ice. I asked myself: How can I express both grit and achievement, while embedding the psychological toll it took? To begin, I took a used hockey puck, one I had trained with, and pressed it into a sponge to mark its size. I then carved each piece. The puck's worn edges, once just signs of impact, became metaphors, each one embedded into the sponge as a record of wear and survival. After cutting and gluing hundreds of these fragments, I arranged them in a spiraling hexagonal tower. The upward motion represents effort, progress, discipline–my climb. But as the structure rises, it begins to destabilize. The spiral wobbles, edges tilt. That instability is intentional. It's a metaphor for an impending collapse: the ever-present anxiety that no matter how much you've built, it could all crumble in a moment. The piece invites the viewer to experience this tension, to stand close, feel the tilt, and sense the precarity. The structure holds both strength and fragility. Like the athlete I was. Like the student I still am.