Trevor Yeung

We both died at the same moment

We both died at the same moment by Trevor Yeung is a humorous observation of anthropomorphism, the attribution of human emotions to nature and animals. A siliquaria armata is a slit worm in a loosely-coiled shell. Growing inside a sea-bed, a siliquaria armata will grow vertically until it touches another siliquaria armata, at which point they will knot together. Once caught by fishermen, the two worms die at the same time. Yeung undermines this romanticized phenomenon by emphasizing the emotionlessness in the process from the life to death of a slit worm. Yet while Yeung’s theoretical interrogation of life and death in nature and humankinds tendency to romanticize the unknown and the unknowable, “We both died at the same moment” simultaneously connotes a mythologisation of the slitworms. The vitrine, a showcase usually hosting Buddhist sculptures, common in Hong Kong, which houses the slit worm aggrandizes the phenomenon of dying at the same time of knotted siliquaria armata’s. “We both died at the same moment” puts into question the desire and tendency to romanticize nature, turning to a slit worm as a metaphor for beauty, life and death.