Dreams are always hard to achieve, but it is necessary to have a dream in order to motivate us. By playing the game, the audience experience the journey of Santiago (the main character of the Alchemist) to Egypt. I really appreciate Santiago’s courage that he has given up his original life and to follow his dream. The marbles in the game are the shadow of Santiago, and it is also a shadow of a life journey. Santiago started his journey from the abandoned church in Spain with his flocks. He met few people that changed his life and taught him to become a better person. At first, he could not see anything beside him other than his dream. He neglects everything and just wants to arrive the pyramid of Egypt as quick as he can. He has encountered a lot of obstacles in his journey and he arrived the pyramid of Egypt at the end. He realised the treasure that he was looking for was not in Egypt; in fact it was at the abandoned church where he started his journey. 

This installation is also symbolizing life journey, people usually dream big, and it always requires a lot of strength to realize the dream. Some people like the crystal merchant in the story, choose not to realize the dream. He believes that after realizing his dream he will lose his motivation to live. On the other hand, some people choose to realize their dream like Santiago. The route of marble in the installation is going down slope, it means the it is easy to go down when you reach the highest point of your dream. At last, Santiago has found his way to go back to the starting point and to live a peaceful life.

By making this installation, I spent most of the time in planning the route of the marble. It was more complicated than I thought. It requires a lot of experiments and test piece before making the real one. The marbles does not move the way I want. I have spent almost three weeks in the wood workshop to build the piece and also some flats and plinths for the degree show. Although the workload is quite high, I enjoy the process.

After finished the piece, I had a showing in one of the room in the main building. I made it as an interactive game, which the audience can play and also reflect. First of all, the audiences are required to write down their dream on a card and take a photo with it. The photo is their entry ticket of the game. They are given three tokens each to exchange for three marbles. Each marble represents one ‘life’. The 

audiences have three chances to play the game; they have to leave if they fail to reach the end point. 

The audience found the game quite fun and they would like to have more marbles. From my observation, some people use all the method such as blowing the marbles in order to reach the end point. Some people smile because they win and someone cry because they lose. 

To conclude, this is a inspiring project and I learnt a lot in planning and making the installation. Life is always complicated and full of obstacles, even for this project. Luckily, I have gone through all the difficulties and able to complete this project and I am satisfy with it. If you are still reading this, it means you are interested in my work. Feel free to contact me or visit my website for more details in my projects.