2024 - LUMEN PILGRIMAGE

Mountain turning is a traditional religious activity in Tibetan areas. Every year, tens of thousands of Tibetans walk around Meili Mountain, kowtow and pray to show their piety. More and more trekking enthusiasts joined this activity, and there was a conflict between the foreigners and the Tibetan. Tourists inadvertently disrupted the pile and broke into the stone caves to disturb the monks’ practice. Therefore, we try to make light, a natural medium, not only provide a spiritual recording method for Tibetans, but also allow hiking enthusiasts and pilgrims to understand and interact with each other to a certain extent.
Lumen printing is a simple use of daylight to complete the exposure and printing technology, it has a strong natural character – only need to take a picture of the object placed in front of the photosensitive paper, and the two are exposed to the sun to form a negative type of photosensitive image, with the increase of ultraviolet intensity and light time extension imaging will become more and more clear.
Combined with the characteristics of sufficient light and strong ultraviolet rays in the Tibetan area, we selected the section from Yubang Village to Divine Waterfall on the Meili route and used lumen printing to leave traces of the interaction between people and people and between people and mountain during the route, and form a series of scene nodes to give the participants a coherent and sacred spiritual experience.
In the forest, an installation formed by spruce wood components and light-sensitive paper surrounds a tall tree. Tourists and Tibetans sit under the trees or rest for meditation or conversation. The light passes through the gap between leaves, which preserves such a scene in the installation.
In the cave, the device made of stone and photosensitive paper is hidden between the piles of stone, and the light is ingested from the gap, recording the scene of monks’ retreat in the hidden paper at the entrance. When visitors look into the cave, they see faint quiet figures, and choose not to disturb them.
Below the waterfall on the lake, the devotees pray for blessings. The installation is placed in a circular row in the middle of the water. The photosensitive paper embedded in the installation records the surrounding figures of the pilgrims and the sparkling light of the lake.