Mountainscape of Void 焚山

We gain knowledge by consuming words and thoughts from the books we read. Everyday and everywhere, we are constantly surrounded by multiple information expressed in various forms. A book can change one person, yet one person cannot change a book. The act of writing down and the desire to share words are both acts of intellectual artistic expression from one person. By sharing our thoughts, we try to convince and naturalize certain opinions. Sometimes we are so caught up by the knowledge we have collected from all the books we have read, we loose ourselves. In some ways, who are we is a construction of what we read. How do we go back to one’s self? I do it by burning down books to ashes and transform them into my own mark making. Political books, sacred writings, educational textbooks, when they are all burned down to ashes, they reach an equal state of neutralization. The color of grey from the ashes symbolizes equality and the idea of void. What is the value of writings when the fragility of paper looses to the consumption of fire? At the end they have turned into wordless vanity. I transform the variety of books by destructing through the ritual act of burning. To go back to one self, I grind the ashes, sieve the ashes, and separate the impurities so that I can extract out the purest state of void. All these action are very egoistic, to express my path going back to one self. At the end, I express out my own mark making through my body, not by words, but through a visual language that is from one self. The action of bowing down, lowering one’s body and laying flat on the paper is an act of apologizing to my own soul. Pressing, tearing, hovering over the ashes, I am constantly searching for the truth which is the purest form of going back to one’s self. The truth is not out there, it is in you.