Where the Bell Sounds

The work Where the Bell Sounds combines mechanical devices and ceramic media to reshape the image of the temple bell, reproducing traditional Chinese culture in a contemporary form.  The ceramic bell, together with a geometric ceramic cone, constructs an abstract landscape reminiscent of Chinese ink painting.  At the same time, it echoes the description of ceramics in the Song Dynasty text Tao Ji: “thin as paper, white as jade, bright as a mirror, and sound as chime.”  Beyond its formal qualities, the work draws on Taoist philosophy, in which sound and silence, fullness and emptiness, are interdependent.  The bell does not merely signify a physical object, but becomes a vessel of qi—the vital breath that flows between matter and spirit.