he major installation was pieces of a Ming dynasty ‘shitang’—a family ancestral hall for worship—from Jiangxi province deconstructed and then reconstructed for the exhibit
In one gallery space, an antique, torn and decrepit dragon lantern sits on an old desk, while on the floor old Chinese lanterns are all lined up, like tired soldiers guarding an old warrior. The intertext of Chinese ritual and celebration, even the zodiac, is what’s being critiqued here, a reminder that the ancient past, what might be considered as heritage, is just as complicit in the task of current un-freedom, in the arts and contemporary ideology, both.