Gachuha
This work is a response to a catastrophe in the depths of time, a questioning of the boundaries of existence, belief and perception. I anchor my gaze on the northeast in 1911, a land ravaged by the plague, and weave a metaphorical picture of the human condition through the overlapping of four acts: corpses devoured by flames, holy fire praying for the spirits, medicinal potions splashed in the street, and lamb bones divining fortunes.
This is not a simple reproduction of the past, but rather an image installation that dives into the forgotten, suppressed, and even actively blocked memories. Here, I have no intention of playing the traditional narrator, but rather a shamanic role, using images as a medium to construct a spiritual field that transcends time and space. Fire is both the rational blade of modern medicine and the mystical channel through which shamans communicate with the gods. The intertwining of these two flames is not simply a cultural conflict, but a reflection of the shifting and ambiguous boundaries of human perception.
I try to ask: when the established system of meaning fails in the face of disaster, how will we cope? The intervention of modern medicine is like a ‘stranger’, carrying the power of reason and order, trying to dispel the gloom that hangs over the land. However, the beliefs and rituals of the indigenous people, as a form of survival wisdom deeply rooted in the land, also show their unique resilience. This is not a dichotomy between civilisation and barbarism, but rather the different paths that humans take in search of meaning when faced with ultimate nothingness.
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Harvard university, countway library of medicine