Ultra Architecture - Garden in Mind

YEAR: 2012

MATERIAL: Thread, Chinese antique furniture, wood structure

SIZE: 1300 cm × 700 cm × 400 cm

EXHIBITED:

2012    Chinese Contemporary Public Art in Kassel, Kassel, Germany

2014    Xiang Yang's Intellectual Garden, Today Art Museum, Beijing, China

2015    Ultra Architecture - East Meets West, Art Sailing Project on River Thames, London, UK

A “dreaming house” was my original inspiration for building such a composition of furniture. When I was a boy, I had a little wooden house in which I spent my childhood and teenage years. This traditional Chinese south-western style wooden house, independent from the family home, was a private space for me to practice art, read, and hang out with my friends.

This work reflects my strong emotional attachment to my childhood house. The antique Chinese cabinets, closets and doors are deconstructed and rebuilt to create an open space. Visitors can walk in and rest inside. Two large thread installations extend out from opposite ends of the structure. One is a depiction of a famous painting, Early Spring by Guo Xi of the Song Dynasty; the other is an abstract composition of plans of Western cathedrals. The original distinctive cultural messages, carried onto this stage, are like a time/space-travel machine, coming together to form a dialogue with each other. The colorful travelling threads form an abstract body, representing a transformation of space.