Replica of Ruins: Deserted City
Antique stone pillar bases, white cement, glass, stainless steel, rusted iron
A set of 5
2024--2025
再造頹垣：丘城
柱礎、白水泥、玻璃、不鏽鋼、鏽鐵
一組5件
2024--2025
In traditional Chinese architecture, stone pillars bases play a vital role in supporting the weight of the entire structure and protecting wooden columns from rotting in the humid southern climate. The stone plinths used in this series of works date back to the Ming and Qing Dynasties.
This series of artworks was first exhibited at Memory Smuggler: A First Quartet at To Art House, Hong Kong. In this exhibition, Chu adopts quasi-archaeological methods to explore the history of settlements and seven abandoned villages in the hills of Fo Tan. These villages, which housed over 200 villagers from the mid-Qing Dynasty (1800s) until the 1990s, now lie in ruins.
Echoing the abandonment of these villages, modern materials such as white cement, precisely cut glass, and steel are used to reconstruct the void atop the historical plinths. These voids evoke the once-complete columns and expand the audience's imagination to the broader architecture, the villages, and the culture that once thrived.
Related exhibition 相關展覽
2025 "Memory Smuggler", To Art House, Hong Kong 《九仞》，嚮渡藝術，香港
Press coverage 相關報導
2025 盧真瑜、韓祺疇，〈【九仞展覽詩輯】每一座倖存的山，如何僥倖地認知自身〉，虛詞，2025年7月26日。 (Lo Chun Yu, Hon Ki Chau, "【Memory Smuggler Poetry Seriesre】How can each surviving mountain, by some chance, come to recognize itself", p-articles, 26 July 2025.) (Chinese only)
Image 1--5: Photos by Wong Pak Hang and commissioned by To Art House. Image 6: Photo by Chu Lok Ting, Natalie. Courtesy of Chu Lok Ting, Natalie.