Rites of Season
2021 - ongoing



The Rites of Seasons series delves into the artist's contemplation and research of pre-modern rituals and the seasonal ceremonies she experienced during her childhood. In this series, the artist perceives the body as a porous entity with ever-changing boundaries. She blurs the distinctions between humans and other living beings, inverting the internal and external aspects of the body to create sculptures that are both tense and subtly suggestive of desire.

Through the interpretation of myths and the imagination of materials, the artist seeks to portray the chaotic qualities that humans reveal during the liminal stages of rituals(These stages refer to the transitional time and space when individuals or groups undergo a shift from one social identity to another)





Wind Passing through Our Bodies
limewood, silicone, epoxy resin, white marble, LED light
220 cm×132 cm×30 cm, 2021











Every year, during the Dragon Boat Festival, a herbal healing ceremony called “expelling wind and fire” is held in my hometown, Chengdu. The women in the family would go into the mountains to pick mugwort, sarcandra glabra, trifoliate-orange leaves, Chinese elder, Chinese wingnut leaves among other herbs efficacious in dispelling wind and promoting blood circulation. The female relatives of the family would then bare their backs together, chatting while receiving healing treatments from each other. This ritual has left a deep imprint on my bodily memory. The ritual holds a spine-like dome that constitutes my perception of home, a consolidation of kinship ties. It is also my original experience of nature and physical change.

In Wind Passing through Our Bodies, I have recreated the scene of brewing herbs by replicating the roof of my home to convey the empathic rhythms resonating between the bodies, the festival, and the plants. Year after year, the wind brushes through the meridians of the plants, through my pores, as well as those of my female relatives, purifying us all while connecting our bodies, nature, and time.






Mark