flammable dream houses

Realised with a grant from Taipei City, this are the artworks made in 2024 as part of the "Flammable Dream Houses" series.

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As a young artist living through to high housing prices in Taiwan and abroad, I set out to design paper houses to burn as offerings to the housing market.

 

These artworks are a reinterpretation of the well-known Taiwanese ritual of burning paper houses (紙紮屋) to give a home for one’s ancestors. Instead, I ask: shouldn’t we burn paper houses for ourselves?

 

Taken out of its traditional context, the absurdity of my new ritual serves as a critique of the quasi-religious state of the housing market in our society, which is like an untouchable god, subjecting us to its unpredictable will, leaving no alternative but to pray.

 

The installation is created as a process, an element central to all rituals. It unfolds as a narrative, going through the various steps of building then destroying the paper houses: from flat paper pieces, to their playful folding into miniature homes carrying hopes and expectations, to their burning into nothingness.

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