Reflection

My painting explores generational knowledge and the complex relationship between humans and nature, with a key message: every action has a consequence. In my artwork, two mirrored figures—my mother in a yellow shirt and me in a white lab coat—represent two generations. Both of us wear masks, but for different reasons shaped by the environments we grew up in. My mother lived in Beijing during the 1990s-2000s, when sandstorms frequently swept through the city. These storms, caused partly by desertification in northern China and Mongolia, damaged the respiratory health of millions. Human activities like overgrazing and mining worsened the problem. To combat this, the government launched the "Three-North Shelter Forest Project", a massive afforestation campaign known internationally as "China’s Green Great Wall." But even well-intentioned solutions can lead to new challenges. In my generation, we now face seasonal outbreaks of poplar catkins. Due to planning mistakes, too many female poplar trees were planted, releasing large amounts of fluffy pollen each spring. I wear a mask not for sandstorms, but to avoid allergies. To take action on this issue, I joined my school’s 2024 iGEM synthetic biology team, where we designed a project to reduce poplar-related allergic reactions using gene-based strategies. My lab coat and test tube symbolize this active step toward solving an environmental problem inherited from the past. Through this work, I’ve realized that "looking inside" means reflecting on family stories, and "going outside" means applying that knowledge to today’s challenges. I hope viewers feel invited to trace their own generational connections to nature—and to recognize that every effort to fix the world must begin with understanding it fully.