Gaining inspiration from renowned artists can come in many forms. Sometimes, rather than being visually inspired by their work, emerging creatives can instead find themselves inspired by their words and the thinking behind their practices. It was a quote from the renowned Louise Bourgeois that inspired the animator Yu Sun’s inventive use of needle and thread in her most recent short film, Stay. “The needle is used to repair damage,” she says. “It’s a claim to forgiveness.”
Spanning a short but sweet five minutes, Stay follows a young girl and her father. The father becomes increasingly absent after taking work-related phone calls, rather than spending time with his young child and partner. The story is directly related to Yu’s own experience. She says, “when I was studying in the UK, I missed my parents a lot, which also made me reconsider the bond between us.”
But, when beginning to approach the story – which Yu identifies as “very straightforward” – she was struggling to find a simple yet interesting way to highlight the personal complexity of familial relationships and how they change or break over time. It was upon hearing Bourgeois’ quote, and realising how the project was a form of self-therapy, that she realised thread proved both a unique and striking material to use. Testing a number of different materials, Yu ended up using tracing paper. She explains: “the blurred line and semi-transparent effect matched the vague childhood memory of my father.”
Wow😁