2025
A Living Installation
Currently on view at Milliken Mills Park in Markham, Ontario Canada
This project is part of Our Park 2025: Learning from Mushroom
The Underground Sun is a living drawing set into a 2,500 square foot civic lawn in Markham. I plant a mycelium-like pattern with native Ontario species that flower in yellow from early spring through late fall. Instead of stripping turf, we insert plants into the existing lawn, allowing competition, succession, and patchiness to unfold over time. The work behaves as a feral infrastructure in which soil organisms, plants, pollinators, weather, maintenance crews, and passersby act as co-authors. My role shifts from control to attunement, calibrating edges and seasonal care so the pattern remains legible while the ecology leads.
A single cultural guest, 水仙花 (daffodil), appears at the start of the year. It carries diasporic resonance from Chinese tradition and marks return, dormancy, and renewal, while remaining secondary to the native field.
This project extends my studio practice with living materials into the public space. What began with lingzhi sculptures becomes an urban habitat that teaches in real time. The Underground Sun invites viewers to read a patch of lawn as an assemblage rather than décor, to see light become bloom, bloom become seed, and seed become the next season’s map. It is public art defined by relationship and care.
Curator: Yan Wu
Special thanks to Catherine Dean and Jonas Spring from Ecoman.
The artist would like to acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and City of Markham.
Photo credit: Yan Chen 陈砚, Jun Zhao 赵峻, Aidan Mao