The Chinese spiritual world intrigues me enormously, not least the god in Chinese terms that sprung up throughout the years. This mysterious power influences people’s lives and knowledge. This god originates from the thinking of enigmas of natural order and our life experiences. It delivers the mental interactions with our ancestors. It presumably indicates an affection, about the curiosity of future uncertainties in mortal life. Based on it, I explored folk beliefs to elucidate life's problems and symbolic culture.
Chapter I is about the oral history of folklore in my Guangdong hometown and my living experience in London. During my first year in London, I was always curious about the surroundings, but meanwhile, I was lost in the brand-new cultural background, and strange things here. The same symbol (e.g. butterfly, garlic) often appears in both cultural narratives. It drives me to find some spiritual connections between the two different cultures. Therefore I began to explore commonalities of these symbols in Chinese and Western culture via metaphor art creation.
Chapter II: Waxing Crescent Moon (ongoing). Waxing Crescent Moon is the first bright sign we see, signifying rebuilding and a new beginning. It also symbolizes my mood of living and working alone in London this year. Spiritual beliefs in this chapter focus on personal experience, telling those words about perception and physical experience through photography.
“Summoning” is closely interlinked with culture, politics, personal life conditions, and histories. The underlying stories come from folklore, fiction, legends and my life. When I tried to discover the underlying stories during photography creation, I found more and more common beliefs that seemed to be shared with each other.
Chapter I
Chapter II
Waxing Crescent Moon
