As smoke unfurling (2024)
3-channel video installation, 1:06:00
Inspired by Sino/Chinese and other East Asian traditions around ancestor worship, this work creates a space for remembrance and contemplation. The use of incense by the sea is a particular nod to the Mid-Autumn Festival. As I burn 100 sticks of incense in the video, the viewer watches smoke unfurling, carrying the gesture infinitely upward. The work is rooted in both grief and growth in a fractured timescale.
Rest and refuge were also vital themes in the work. The hazy blue of the sky extends into the space and textiles. Each channel—two TV monitors and a large projection—plays the same video from a different point in time. At once, this allows visitors to experience more of the gesture while also making it impossible to fully capture.
This video installation was part of a series of works commissioned by curator Anna Jin Hwa Borstam for a solo exhibition in August–September 2024 at Krognoshuset in Lund, Sweden. Cinematographer Tanja Wol Sørensen captured the video in Malmö.