Nine Chairs
2025

This installation extends 𝘙𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘣𝘺 𝘢𝘯 𝘈𝘳𝘵𝘪𝘴𝘵 into a collective and spatial form. First exhibited in 𝗚𝗵𝗼𝘀𝘁𝟮𝟱𝟲𝟴 at the Jim Thompson Art Center, this iteration marks the work’s inaugural presentation.

Nine dining chairs, each borrowed from a different family and having witnessed countless domestic moments, are arranged in the pattern of the Later Heaven Bagua (后天八卦) and its Nine Palaces (九宫), guided by the shifting cycles of the San Yuan Xuan Kong Nine Periods system (玄空九运).
 
Every hour, the chairs are reoriented to align with the most auspicious direction at that moment, channeling the positive energy of the space. Visitors who sit are invited to receive this alignment, to rest in its flow, attune to its rhythm, and open themselves to its potential for renewal and healing.
 
The central chair remains unseated. It becomes a vessel filled with salt, a material long associated with purification and protection. Each participant is invited to add a handful of salt to this chair before sitting, contributing to the collective act of cleansing and renewal.
 
These dining chairs carry the traces of family life… conversations, meals, laughter, and arguments, bearing witness to intimate dynamics and personal histories. When positioned within this cosmological framework, they weave together familial memory and the cycles of time and space. The turning of the chairs becomes both a reading of the environment and a ritual of care.