The Door to All Essence

Public video installation, Xiamen, China, 2018

The Door to All Essence is a video installation made in response to the first verse of the Dao De Jing.

Animations of the universe are partly visible through a projected half-opened door. A deep booming voice can be heard reading the first full verse in Chinese and English over a humming, other-worldly soundtrack.

The starting point for this work from the last line of the verse. I loved the imagery of ‘[a] door to all essence’; ‘[a] gate of all mystery’; ‘[a] gateway to all understanding’; which alludes to the grandness and incomprehensibility of the forces that created the universe. And I thought it would be interesting to play with our human desire to open that door, and another teaching in the first verse which states: ‘rid yourself of desires in order to observe its secrets’.

Read more about this work on the works on the way blog.