Atlas of the Dormant Flesh ( 隐生图鉴)
Installation variable; Overall footprint approx. 53 × 36 × 46 inches; Ceramic components ranging from 5 × 2 × 1.5 inches. 13 × 8 × 9 inches. to 24 × 9 × 4 inches.
Three hand-built ceramic sculptures, raw timber, natural bark, plant ash.
2026
Grounding its inquiry in Shan Hai Jing (山海经) iconography and regional ritual anthropology, Atlas of the Dormant Flesh deploys a symbiotic trio of ceramic sculptures embedded within natural wood textures to examine how material artifacts materialize local memory, sacred worship, and dormant states of existence.
Atlas of the Dormant Flesh is an interdisciplinary material culture research practice that brings together sculpture, natural media, and visual documentation. The installation is built around a group of ceramic sculptures together with wood and bark, forming a material order of forms that cuts across local histories and belief practices.
In the work’s visual narrative, three central ceramic sculptures articulate different dimensions of life: one appears as an anomalous shell or body that exceeds ordinary life cycles, evoking permanence, dormancy, and resistance; the second is a flattened, unknown heterogeneous organism, reflecting an interweaving of archaic memory and nonhuman presence; the third serves as a maternal carrier, a site of gestation and dwelling. Rather than existing in isolation, these three sculptures form an intrinsic intertextuality and symbiotic relationship: they are either housed within specific carriers or traced through the natural fissures and textures of tree trunks, producing a field in which the “living” and the “suspended” coexist.
The project’s theoretical perspective is rooted in a historical examination of the Classic of Mountains and Seas, ancient mural imagery, and marginal, localized ritual practices. Within the framework of material culture studies and religious anthropology, the “object” here exceeds mere function and formal aesthetics; it is reshaped as a materialized expression of local memory, belief practice, and the veneration of sacred objects. The work explores the material connections among ritual, acts of offering, and objects of belief, and reflects on how worshipped objects shift in form through historical change.
Atlas of the Dormant Flesh（隐生图鉴）是一项融合雕塑、自然媒介与视觉影像的跨学科物质文化研究实践。作品由三组陶瓷雕塑以及木头与树皮构成的装置主体共同协作，构建出一套跨越地缘历史与信仰实践的物质形态秩序。
在作品的视觉叙事中，三件核心陶瓷雕塑构成了不同维度的生命表达：其一呈现为具备超越常规生命周期的异形躯壳，隐喻着永恒、隐生与抵抗；其二为呈平铺状态的异质生物形态，折射出远古记忆与非人样态的交织；其三则为作为孕育与寄居场所的母体载体。这三件雕塑并非孤立存在，而是形成了一种内在互文与共生关系：它们或被安置于特定的载体之中，或隐现于自然树干的缝隙与肌理间。这种形式的互证交织出一张张悬置的生命图景，，构成了“活态”与“停滞”并存的场域。
本创作的理论视角根植于对《山海经》、古代壁画及边缘地缘仪式的历史考察。在物质文化研究与宗教人类学的框架下，“物”在此超越了单纯的功能性与形式美学，被重塑为地方性记忆、信仰实践与圣物崇拜的实体化表征。作品旨在探究仪式、供奉行为与信仰对象之间的物质性关联，反思崇拜对象在历史演变中的形态迁移。