Everything will fall into Ruins

DURATION: 2006-10-04 ~ 2006-11-19
OPENING: 2006-10-04
VENUE: Taipei Fine Art Museum

Artist’s Statement There can be no civilization without ruins, just as there won’t be a heaven if there is no hell. There will always be light and darkness, good and evil, love and hatred in this world. I always roam the edge of the city to seek memories, but the city is undergoing changes surreptitiously as a result of certain unpredictable force and is emerging in a transformed state. The elusive force hidden in a dark corner watching reality creeps in at all times invisibly, and yet its existence is indiscernible In the process of photographing ruins, I had some new realizations. I have to admit that we are not born and then destined to die one day, but we are dying all the time. All things have their life cycle and an expiry date has been set for them. After the decay and destruction of their physical being, they reappear in another form and preserve the aura of the original being as relics. Compared with our so-called happy existence, the wasteland is in certain ways even more “real” than the real world, and more “perfect” than perfection. The concept of “remains” is a relative one and is confronted with real life. I always turn back to look at the ruins, leaving images showing a deserted scene. There seems to be an unfillable black hole in my heart, and I am speechless when facing the ruins. I’m not sure whether I travel around to see the ruins, or to be seen by the ruins. If the image is a mirror, I’m probably trying to escape from the “self” in the mirror. Instead, I enter the illusion in the mirror to lose myself. Sometimes it may seem perverse or obsessive, but more often it is a kind of inexplicable search. By going in search of ruins, I contemplate the half-withered and lonely soul deep inside me and enter into a dialogue for self-cure. But after seeing so many forgotten corners in the world, I become even more speechless and uncomprehending… The sky is studded with stars. While some new stars are expanding, some white dwarfs have already been destroyed. In the boundless universe, all kinds of “ruins” abound. Although our brief existence is accompanied by decay, the silent ruins may be a symbol of the constant birth and death process in nature. Too much commemoration and reconstruction will distort the lesson hidden within. If we can understand this, ruins are no longer just ruins, but are an essential experience in life. With this realization, maybe we should think of life and death, or any kind of architecture that is bound to perish in the course of time, as “dreams and illusions”, and all material existence as “dewdrops and lightning”, as the Diamond Sutra says. A star, a grain of sand, a temple or a ruin – everything is just an idea and a thought that reflects a secret landscape deep in people’s heart.