Description
In traditional Hong Kong, there is a belief in the existence of life after death, where the dead await the approval of a new life by an institution in the afterworld. The deceased continue to exist in the afterworld in temporary lodging as they wait in transit.
Descendants of the dead buy and burn their late ancestors’ favourite necessities and paper-made offerings, such as clothes, shoes, food, car, houses, currency, and so on. It is believed that these offerings, after being set on fire, can be transferred to afterworld as real clothes, shoes, food, car, house, currency etc. People are convinced that the deceased will then possess sufficient necessities for daily life, living well and wealthily. This work is about the transition from birth to death, from death to the afterlife, and the transferring of all kinds of offerings to the deceased, while abstract things of ancestors enter their descendants’ minds.
I tried to capture the flow of smoke in each scene, then combined three photos into the whole picture, where the smoke vanishes into things. Smoke is intangible, which is like the phenomena with the human mind in which abstract things emerge. Is seeing is believing? Or is believing is seeing?
This "Vanishing into things” project was selected one of the finalist in 2017/2018 WMA Masters Competition held by WYNG Foundation
香港傳統有一種迷信說法,人死後會前往臨時棲身地繼續存在,等候地府/冥界安排,重投另一個新生命。後人持續購買死者心愛的紙祭品,後人相信將這些紙祭品通過燃燒後能成功傳送給死者享用,以確保他們死後的生活能夠豐衣足食和家財萬貫。
由出世到死亡,生命死後的轉化;各式各樣紙祭品轉移,並將先人之存在過渡至後人抽象意識上。我嘗試拍攝捕捉每一個場景流動中的煙霧,並將三張圖片整合成一幅作品,那種捉摸不到的現象就像腦海浮現與淡出的影像。眼睛看見的景物才是真確?還是相信就可以遇見及體現?
這輯《化靈為物》作品獲選為2017/2018年度WMA大師獎比賽入圍作品之一。
2017 Fine Art inkjet print 藝術噴墨打印 (1067 x 508 mm), paper-made offerings and electronic candle installation 紙祭品及電子蠟燭擺設