Moon, my sister, making a wish over a photo cake of my great-grandmother making a wish on a pile of 寿桃包 on her birthday.
寿桃包 or Longevity peach buns, are steamed buns with lotus seed filling made into a shape of a peach. According to Chinese folklore, these peaches ripen every thousands of years, and grant immortality when consumed. Hence, these peach buns symbolizes longevity & long-life, and is a classic dish enjoyed during birthday celebrations.
Wishing Well is an ongoing body of work focusing on objects, rituals, and myth-making. This series is inspired by ancestral Chinese practices, and American and Chinese food celebrations. Using a combination of family archive materials and original photographs to create these photo sculptures, I hope to explore how objects carry our dreams, wishes and spirits.
This is a work-in-progress of joss paper sculptures that I am making. In this particular pattern on the suit, are scans of a dream journal [dated 1907] I found at an antiques market in Hang Zhou, China. In the front of this book is a 祖谱 [Genealogy/family tree], and in the back of this book is the dream journal. On this page of the dream journal, this person writes about their dream of clouds forming into a stairway into the sky. I loved this image, and I loved the idea of this dream journal being saved because of the family tree. I really appreciate this Chinese ritual of burning joss papers— sending objects and wishes to your ancestors in another realm.
These rituals of burning joss papers for the dead, or making a wish and blowing out the candle on a birthday cake, all rely on the idea that the smoke will carry up wishes into the sky, or to the gods. I want to extend these rituals into my art practice.