Wang Yu-Song

王煜松 

I first encountered the term Angel's Share after arriving in Scotland. It refers to the small amount of whisky that naturally evaporates from oak casks during maturation—a portion believed to have been taken by angels.

I began to wonder why evaporation is so often understood as disappearance.

The whisky has not vanished; it has simply left the cask and entered the air. Water becomes clouds, clouds become rain, and rain returns to rivers. Trees become charcoal, charcoal becomes drawings, and the human body eventually returns to the earth. Matter never truly leaves the world. It only continues to transform from one state into another.

This realization became the foundation of the installation. Trees collected from the surrounding forest were burned into charcoal and used to produce a series of drawings. The remaining trunks were transformed into fountain-like structures that continuously sprayed whisky into the exhibition space. As the whisky evaporated, its scent gradually filled the gallery, allowing the Angel's Share to unfold as a physical experience rather than merely a metaphor. Ice spheres containing feathers, stones, and found objects collected nearby were placed on the grass. As they melted, these objects slowly returned to the landscape from which they had come.

Rather than representing cycles of transformation, I wanted the installation itself to operate as one. Materials continually shifted between different states. Liquids became vapor, wood became charcoal, charcoal became images, and the viewers themselves entered this circulation through breathing the evaporated whisky.

I have come to believe that the world is not composed of fixed objects, but of continuous transformations. What we call a tree, a stone, a body, or even a life is only a temporary arrangement of the same matter. What endures is not the object itself, but the endless process of becoming.