Extreme Happiness World
Funerary papers, ceramic slip
15ft x 10 ft x 10 ft (dimensions variable)
2013
As part of a Taiwanese funerary ritual, papers with prayers written on them are folded into origami lotus flowers and burned as offerings for the dead until there is nothing left but ash. I preserve this ritual by dipping the flowers in ceramic slip, and firing them in the kiln. As the prayer papers burn, they become an offering for the dead; the ceramic husk, memento mori for the living. The ritual becomes a partial and incomplete documentation of grief at the crossroads of Western academic curiosity and Taiwanese folk identity.