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Exhibited Artworks & Videos

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Could hell ever be wiped out? If hell were to become vacant, would the mortal world be overrun with ghosts and demons? Yet, if hell were to be emptied, would the world not then become a pure land? If one can realize the nature of emptiness, where then would hell even exist?

The concept of hell has long been widely circulated across various cultures since ancient times. Birth, aging, death, and decay form the foundation of natural cycles and the core of cosmic consciousness. However, even in a prosperous civilization like our own, desire still lingers, and it remains impossible to uproot evil. Constrained by the layers of constitutional, national, legal, social, military, corporate, institutional, familial, and group regulations, which are no less oppressive than the eighteen levels of hell, we retreat into repression, restraining our emotions and burying them deep within our hearts. As time progresses, greed, anger, ignorance, pride, doubt, resentment, and hostility can amass and fester. Nonetheless, as the six external stimuli perceived by the six sense faculties remain unsatiated and delusions occupy the mind, demons, ghosts, phantoms, and wandering spirits would roam the wilderness and even the mortal world. To interact with spirits in open fields and dense forests in order to cultivate one’s spiritual essence is a practice of enlightened sages. For ordinary mortals like us, recklessly trespassing into such a Disneyland-like fabricated hell, where our “three immortal souls and seven mortal forms” are incapable of going through an out-of-body experience, the terror, horror, hideousness, grotesquery encountered would merely satisfy a self-righteous sense of shame. Erroneously absurd, is it not?

However, greed, anger, ignorance, pride, and doubt are difficult to eradicate. Falling into the interminable cycle of reincarnation is the consequence of unresolved karma. Excessive attachment to appearances, leading to infatuation with the physical body, can cause us to lose sight of our true intention; hence, hell can never truly be empty. To remove karmic hindrances, Hell Realm presents a journey of repentance through hell, where the Ten Kings of Hell’s wheel of reincarnation is witnessed, and each chamber of judgment and punishment is visited. The creative team has researched the kitschy depictions of hell and quirky figurines found in temples across Taiwan, blending fear, absurdity, and self-reflection into a collective spiritual journey into the nether world. If you feel remorse and wish to repent, please head over to the “Hell Oracle Machine” to seek guidance from the guardian kings of the ten chambers of hell.

Hell is inherently empty; it manifests only when deluded thoughts give rise to envy, jealousy, and hatred. If we can be mindful, realize our true nature, and see that all phenomena are empty and lack inherent or permanent existence, then whether heaven or hell, they are only a single thought apart.


Artists
YAO Jui-Chung│Original Creator, Concept Director & Opening Performance
Hi-Quality│Visual Direction & Production Coordination

Production Team
TSAI Yu-Ting│Project Manager
MIN Shih-Han│Animation Prodution & Visual Design
CHEN Chih-Yang│Animation Prodution & Visual Technology
WU Cheng-Ru (PB)│Visual Technology
HUANG Yung-Jen│Sound Design & Audio Engineering
LIN Lung-Chin│ Graphic Design & Calligraphy
Original Music Licensing│Mong Tong


Opening Performance
Yso Jui-Chung x CHEN Bo-Yu

Closing Performance
Mong Tong

Special Thanks│CHEN Cai-Yi, LO Chih-Wei, CHIN Kuo-Chuan

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