Ember Trilogy II- Feast

During years of fieldwork in Zuoying’s military dependents’ villages, we witnessed communities gradually emptied, demolished, and transformed into vacant land. As familiar living spaces disappeared, we became increasingly aware of the artist’s body as one of the few presences remaining within the site. After the residents had left, who would carry the stories that once existed there?

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In this work, we use our bodies as vessels to reenact events from the field, centering on a feast that welcomes the war dead. Through acts resembling possession and spirit mediumship, traces of vanished lives return to the present. Rather than approaching military village history through nostalgia, the work draws upon ghost stories, unofficial histories, and overlooked personal experiences to revisit the historical embers that continue to smolder beneath contemporary life.