Can't Fly
une installation de Yang Mushi
bcp#15



After returning to Shanghai for the Bazaar Compatible Program on the Tomb Sweeping Day, I surveyed the surrounding environment of the exhibition space and accidentally found a stall selling ghost money.  A whimsical idea suddenly occurred to me: I would plan to build an expensive plane made of various kinds of gold ingot, one-million-yuan-banknote and incense.
 
In terms of Confucian culture, "sacrifice" is the most important ceremony, and "grand burial" and "sacrifice to the ancestors" constitute a crucial part of traditional Chinese culture.  Could my "ghost-money" plane fly?  We couldn't get the answer, just like we couldn't know whether all the objects of grand burial really exert their functions assumed in the folk culture or not.  However, they truly exist, become a symbol of traditional culture, and more significance exists in the aspect of form.  Following the formal rituals, people sweep tombs, burn ghost money, meanwhile damage the green ecology, fell trees, pollute air, and couldn't thoroughly realize the importance of "profuse support to the senior and plain burial".

Thus, what's important is to grasp the essence of life and problems in the current life, so that all those paper planes carrying humankind's expectations could really fly high.


Yang Mushi
Shanghai, 15 avril 2012.