2017
star anise, metal pins, shadow, smell
dimensions variable
Star Mountains reinterprets the spatial logic of shanshui landscape painting through hundreds of dried star anise pods. Arranged across the wall, the pods create a shifting terrain where light and shadow form silhouettes resembling trees, figures, or distant ridgelines. Rather than depicting a landscape, the work constructs one through accumulation and projection.
Mountains in Chinese thought are often understood as threshold spaces between human and cosmic realms. That sensibility informs the installation’s structure without becoming illustration. The pods retain their strong aroma, introducing scent as an invisible dimension that extends the work beyond its physical form. Like shadow, scent disperses and lingers.
Star anise functions as spice, botanical form, and sculptural unit. Its geometry echoes both stellar and mountainous formations, while its shadows generate a secondary, ephemeral landscape. The installation proposes environment as relational experience, shaped by light, air, and perception rather than fixed image.