Longing is an installation I created during my second year of university, where I placed four Victorian-style hot air balloons in different hallways throughout campus. Each balloon is piloted by a small frog dressed in period clothing, captured mid-flight, as if caught in a slow-motion journey across time and space.

The frogs are a form of self-representation—miniature versions of myself, navigating unfamiliar skies. As an international student living in Canada, I often feel suspended between two worlds: the place I come from and the place I’m learning to call home. These floating characters became a way to explore that emotional in-between: part nostalgia, part displacement, part curiosity.

The balloons were handmade using cheap materials and repurposed objects sourced from Dollarama. I liked the idea of building something fantastical and elegant out of humble components. That contrast felt honest—like constructing dreams from scraps.

By installing the pieces throughout the university’s corridors, I wanted people to encounter them unexpectedly—tiny scenes of escape and introspection, tucked between the daily routine. Longing is about movement, homesickness, and the fragile architecture of memory we carry with us wherever we go.