CHEN XIAOYI

I wrote this sentence down after waking from a dream.

Creation often gestures toward time that is yet to be developed. Just as I confirmed in June of last year, lying beneath the peak of Dangjie Zhenla—on this side of life, I do truly love this gravelly world: grey, gritty, and boundless. All existence, its grievability, and the question of “which lives are worthy of mourning,” resonate in such moments.

Over the past seven years, wandering back and forth in the Hengduan Mountains has formed the substance of my daily life. In those moments of presence that seem unrelated to art, I am often swept into a profound depth. Everything that appears still or vanishing is, in fact, constantly flowing and transforming; while glaciers, rocks, and lakes preserve all memories of destruction and generation. The openness and impermanence of this unfiltered reality compose a specific pleasure and tremor, sedimented within an untranslatable natural language. It is like the impact of reality itself on the structure of life—irresistible, yet it also stirs within the affect a compelled imperative of practice.

Living in a world of mutual sensing and interdependence, I seek to use the syntax of ashes to find a vocabulary charged with momentum for those stones that appear stern, coarse, and still. To re-understand how to continue existing in a world that is vast, silent, indifferent, and ancient.

*Title adapted from Nelly Sachs’s verse: “Schmetterling / aller Wesen gute Nacht! / Die Gewichte von Leben und Tod” (Butterfly / good night of all beings! / The weights of life and death).