Burial Haptics
Nov 7-12, 2021 / Tjaden Gallery, Ithaca NY
Burial Haptics holds works of sculpture, ceramics, video and text that consider the spaces between life and death, screen and soup, healing and desire. Questions around memory and memorialization are probed in this installation via the creation of historical, contemporary, and fictitious burial and healing traditions.
Two turtle sculptures that combine the visual language of the American tombstone with Chinese burial guardians statues guard the entrance to the gallery space. A joss paper path lined with slipcast chicken feet clicking computer mice and peach pits welcome the viewer to walk through the liminal space. On one side of the path, a 3-channel video depicting the creation of an herbal soup as a transferral of generational knowledge between my mother and I; on the other side a ceramic pot on a hot plate diffuses a Chinese healing ointment.
Burial Guardian (R)
Pink foam, plaster, Miracle Gro soil, pit-fired and seared stoneware
Spirit Way
Joss paper, slip casted chicken foot, computer mouse, and peach pits, found peach pits
Qingming in the Fall
3-channel video
Vlog: After Patty (Hair)*
Youtube video
*Patty Chang’s Melons (At a Loss) (1998)
Afterlife
Kitchen wall, glazed stoneware on electric burner filled with boiling water and feng you jing