Project 4 Hundred Longevity Symbols
This series of works is rooted in the traditional indigo dyeing and batik practices of ethnic minority communities in Southwest China—particularly the Miao, Bouyei, and Gejia peoples of Guizhou—which the artist approaches not as a preserved folk craft but as a material investigation into structure, identity, and time. Through repeated cycles of dyeing, oxidation, and drying, layers of deep blue accumulate across the fabric like the slow sedimentation of time itself, while traditional motifs—beast masks, circular symbols, and auspicious characters—are detached from their original ritual contexts and re-emerge as fragments of cultural coding, resembling archival remnants. The central work, The Hundred Longevity Symbols, layers historical variations of the character "寿" (shou) drawn from different dynasties and calligraphic traditions into an index-like or specimen-like structure, revealing language itself as a fluid and unstable cultural system. Hand stitching here functions less as decoration than as a slow act of writing, repair, and re-inscription, while the deep indigo surfaces hold the imagery in a state of partial visibility—forever emerging and receding. Rather than offering fixed conclusions, the works pose an open-ended inquiry into how traditional symbols continue to exist, and acquire an almost mystical quality, within an accelerated and increasingly standardised contemporary visual landscape.