ABSTRACT
Holes in the Ground examines physical and metaphysical elements in the exhumation of Chinese graves. Two-and-a-half dimensional drawing-models replicate the Chinese burial ground’s habitual inaccessibility and the cemetery’s undulating terrain. There is significant violence during exhumation. So here too, architectural plans are burrowed into; topographical sections are pulled apart. The textual fragments layered onto the drawing-models are excerpts recounting taboos, superstitions and spiritual encounters. These were extracted from documentaries, tabloid newspapers, online cemetery-trekking hobbyist blogs, and paranormal adventure websites. The text-image intersection narrates a double landscape in tension: a cemetery passively awaiting demolition, and an active spectral landscape where reparations must be made in the face of such damage. The spectral landscape is mired in what cannot be seen but sensed: the forced opening of a timber coffin is followed by the sound of thunder; a plastic pail may save one’s misplaced fortunes when used to bail water from a flooded pit.
