Single channel video, things left from the artist's ancestors and Grandpa from 1800s to 2000s, boxes made by common materials from Hong Kong walled villages, previous works selected from the artist from 2005 to 2015, aluminum cabinets, cabinets, glass, mixed media
Dimension variable
video: http://vimeo.com/240440282, 13min36s
It has been more than a decade since grandfather’s passing. The spirits of rituals he once held fast to have thinned in daily life; festivals now dissolve into meals and offerings, unable to withstand the relentless spin of modern information.
What does each grandfather, whether by chance or design, leave for those who follow? One day, clearing the hidden room beneath the stairs, I uncovered a tin box buried under years of clutter. Inside lay relics of ancestors and of grandfather himself: great-grandfather’s photographs, letters, paintings; grandfather’s marriage certificate, his books, notes, leather suitcase; a bundle of passport photos; a red cloth inscribed with banquet guests’ names—objects spanning decades, even centuries.
I grew up within the walled village, and in 2014 I recorded its spring and autumn ancestral rites. At the same time, I assembled a singular box: modern household objects placed alongside relics of ancestors and grandfather, interwoven with fragments of my own creative work from the past decade. Together they form a kind of atlas of scattered heirlooms, a continuation of fragments.
How do objects summon the memory of generations, and the stories of human lives?
爺爺離開十年多，好些他堅守的儀式精神在日常裡沒繼承多少，節慶逐漸簡化作聚餐及酬神，難以抵抗資訊高速轉動的現實。
每一位爺爺，不經意的、或特意的，為後來者留下什麼？一天，執拾家中梯級底下暗室，取出被雜物堆疊的鐵皮箱，箱內是祖先及爺爺的遺物。曾爺爺的照片、書信、畫作；爺爺的結婚證書、藏書、札記、手提皮箱；一堆護照照片；晚宴嘉賓題名的紅布匹，等等來自數十或過百年前的物件。
自出生後在圍村長大，二零一四年記錄它的春秋二祭，同時以家中現代的物件為祖先及爺爺的不同遺物製作獨一的盒子，並置自身過去十多年創作的某些部分，如同延續碎片般遺物的圖譜。
物件如何勾起世代和人事？
