Material: Recycled Lantern ,Oil Paint and earth Pigment on Recyled paer and Rice paper ,Ash from wood
This installation reimagines a Taoist funeral—not for a human, but for a forest. Drawing from the artist’s Chinese heritage and influenced by New Materialist thought, the work gives form to ecological mourning and the unseen vitality of our ecosystem It invites us to see the forest not as passive ground, but as a sentient, relational being.
At its center, a found lamp, repurposed to resemble a traditional Chinese funeral lantern—is wrapped in fragile rice paper, painted with oil and earth pigments. The surface evokes the forest’s wounded skin, scarred by deforestation. It sits atop a bed of ash, like a tombstone. The ash itself becomes a material of mourning, carrying loss, memory, and destruction. These materials are not inert; they hold trauma. They speak, if we learn to listen.
Above it, hand-painted strips of recycled paper twist and rise from the wall, animated as if alive. Their gestural marks give form to the unseen energy of the forest—the silent signals exchanged through roots, fungi, and soil.
And at the heart of this quiet ritual, a soft light glows from within the lantern and behind the rice paper—a final flicker of hope. It suggests that our relationship with the land still holds the possibility of healing, if we choose communion over exploitation.
