inkjet print and gold leaf on counterfeit bills given to artist in a scam, acrylic panels
2024
2024
a couple weeks into 2024, i was scammed. in exchange for a new laptop, "Brian" gave me eighteen fake $50 bills.
ritualistic practices within Chinese culture aim to connect materiality and spirituality, like the burning of "joss paper". it is believed that this money, once burned to ash, is sent to the afterlife for one’s ancestors to spend. i made my counterfeit bills into this type of ceremonial artifact to imbue them with value again, albeit in another realm.
real money is, technically, also fake; the ever-dire circumstances of capital that push people to scam is built on its own house of cards. ancestor veneration rituals are part of a larger understanding that the spirits of the dead influence the fate of the living. there is bleak humor in this situation: the only hope for a better life within the precarity of global capitalism is to place my faith in those who no longer have to live it. my loss in this world can at least be repurposed for my ancestors’ gain in the next — and then, hopefully, reflect back onto me again.
homemade incense*, epoxy clay, red wish paper
*Incense Flavors:
Takis Blue Heat
Kraft Mac & Cheese
2x Spicy Buldak Ramen
Sour Patch Kids
Shin Ramyun
2024
*Incense Flavors:
Takis Blue Heat
Kraft Mac & Cheese
2x Spicy Buldak Ramen
Sour Patch Kids
Shin Ramyun
2024
these homemade incense sculptures document a long personal history with disordered eating, and the ways these habits mimic the repetitive nature of ritual and meditation. the incense itself is composed of different foods that have fed into this behavior in the past; they are displayed on sculptural coils that imitate the chandelier-like incense spirals hung in Buddhist temples, which are usually associated with a specific desire or wish for the future.
paper mache, graphite, wood, offerings
2023
2023
a centerpiece altar surrounded by divination ports, each of which pay homage to a different fortune-telling ritual used throughout Chinese history. the central structure is comprised entirely of paper-mache as a form of zhizha, a traditional Chinese craft that uses paper to create funeral offerings meant to be burned and sent to the afterlife. the medium amplifies the blur between material and spiritual—paper is inherently fragile, yet that allows it to be both malleable and fortifiable. the scene as a whole is created to be destroyed in service of communing with the intangible.
the act of divination projects a possible future. by naming the possibility, the diviner casts a line that hooks onto a future previously unnamed. however, knowing this possibility can influence our decision-making, resisting one pathway through the active creation of others. materiality and spirituality exist not in opposition to one another, but dialectically, as phenomena that each inform, change, and strengthen the other. what do we believe in so much that it affects our actions in the present? what spirits are we trying to invoke or honor?
the altar and its elements make reference to both historical Chinese altarmaking and material revolutionary symbols, actions, and experiments. while historically limited to the elite, a circular installation communalizes the practice of divination. the interplay of spiritual and revolutionary imagery invites the viewer to imagine the offerings they might wield in contribution to a better shared future, and collectively take action to make that future inevitable.
*all paper mache was burned at the end of the show, with the ash turned into hanging charms.