In Chinese tradition, spirit money is burnt for ancestors and spirits in the afterworld as an offering. Origin is made from hundreds of rolls of spirit money; half of these rolls are with the rich and warm texture of the spirit money, shimmers of silver and gold, the other half charred black. The circle brings together the solid and the void, the present and the absent into one complete whole, and alludes to the balance and linkage between the current world and the afterworld.

“This yin and yang is perhaps best exemplified in Origin, a large circular wall piece made of “spirit money” rolled up and mounted in opposing forces with clean regular rolls on one hemisphere, and charred and offered ones comprising the other. As with fine jewelry, the dainty elements — silver and gold hints beckoning from the edges — provide currency not only for the living, but also, in this case, power to those spirits moved on into the afterlife.”

\— Steven Irvin, Buzzine, LA

Installation view, Three Thousand Troubled Threads exhibition