Offerings
Offerings is a video-based work-in-progress that focuses on the industry around Chinese diasporic Qing Ming paper sculptures known as "zhizha".
This project examines the poetic and symbolic value of zhizha paper sculptures to discuss larger questions of diaporic identity, migration, mass production, geopolitics, trade, and U.S.-China relations. It also weaves introspective reflection on the business of personal and collective mourning.
Continuing Sunny's experimental filmmaking, Offerings will employ humor and voiceover acting to animate paper sculptures sourced from Chinatown in Bangkok, Thailand, and New York, USA. Aimed to be shot in a contained set in New York, Sunny will bring to life the paper sculptures, which embody the dead, as they discuss the tradition behind Qing Ming: the living burning paper "goods" to deliver to the dead. The project highlights the absurdity behind the lucrative business of making objects that are meant to perish.
Offerings continues Sunny's line of inquiry about practices around grieving, and the absurdism and attachments that grow from a caring and intentional place.
Offerings was previously a book project that Sunny explored during their artist residency at Center for Book Arts in 2023. In this iteration, Sunny attempted to bind a book made out of the delicate joss paper that creates symbolic zhizha money. The more they tried to bind, the more the book would wear because of the material. The act itself became a symbolic gesture to mourning.
Offerings is a video-based work-in-progress that focuses on the industry around Chinese diasporic Qing Ming paper sculptures known as "zhizha".
This project examines the poetic and symbolic value of zhizha paper sculptures to discuss larger questions of diaporic identity, migration, mass production, geopolitics, trade, and U.S.-China relations. It also weaves introspective reflection on the business of personal and collective mourning.
Continuing Sunny's experimental filmmaking, Offerings will employ humor and voiceover acting to animate paper sculptures sourced from Chinatown in Bangkok, Thailand, and New York, USA. Aimed to be shot in a contained set in New York, Sunny will bring to life the paper sculptures, which embody the dead, as they discuss the tradition behind Qing Ming: the living burning paper "goods" to deliver to the dead. The project highlights the absurdity behind the lucrative business of making objects that are meant to perish.
Offerings continues Sunny's line of inquiry about practices around grieving, and the absurdism and attachments that grow from a caring and intentional place.
Offerings was previously a book project that Sunny explored during their artist residency at Center for Book Arts in 2023. In this iteration, Sunny attempted to bind a book made out of the delicate joss paper that creates symbolic zhizha money. The more they tried to bind, the more the book would wear because of the material. The act itself became a symbolic gesture to mourning.
Offerings is a video-based work-in-progress that focuses on the industry around Chinese diasporic Qing Ming paper sculptures known as "zhizha".
This project examines the poetic and symbolic value of zhizha paper sculptures to discuss larger questions of diaporic identity, migration, mass production, geopolitics, trade, and U.S.-China relations. It also weaves introspective reflection on the business of personal and collective mourning.
Continuing Sunny's experimental filmmaking, Offerings will employ humor and voiceover acting to animate paper sculptures sourced from Chinatown in Bangkok, Thailand, and New York, USA. Aimed to be shot in a contained set in New York, Sunny will bring to life the paper sculptures, which embody the dead, as they discuss the tradition behind Qing Ming: the living burning paper "goods" to deliver to the dead. The project highlights the absurdity behind the lucrative business of making objects that are meant to perish.
Offerings continues Sunny's line of inquiry about practices around grieving, and the absurdism and attachments that grow from a caring and intentional place.
Offerings was previously a book project that Sunny explored during their artist residency at Center for Book Arts in 2023. In this iteration, Sunny attempted to bind a book made out of the delicate joss paper that creates symbolic zhizha money. The more they tried to bind, the more the book would wear because of the material. The act itself became a symbolic gesture to mourning.
Offerings is a video-based work-in-progress that focuses on the industry around Chinese diasporic Qing Ming paper sculptures known as "zhizha".
This project examines the poetic and symbolic value of zhizha paper sculptures to discuss larger questions of diaporic identity, migration, mass production, geopolitics, trade, and U.S.-China relations. It also weaves introspective reflection on the business of personal and collective mourning.
Continuing Sunny's experimental filmmaking, Offerings will employ humor and voiceover acting to animate paper sculptures sourced from Chinatown in Bangkok, Thailand, and New York, USA. Aimed to be shot in a contained set in New York, Sunny will bring to life the paper sculptures, which embody the dead, as they discuss the tradition behind Qing Ming: the living burning paper "goods" to deliver to the dead. The project highlights the absurdity behind the lucrative business of making objects that are meant to perish.
Offerings continues Sunny's line of inquiry about practices around grieving, and the absurdism and attachments that grow from a caring and intentional place.
Offerings was previously a book project that Sunny explored during their artist residency at Center for Book Arts in 2023. In this iteration, Sunny attempted to bind a book made out of the delicate joss paper that creates symbolic zhizha money. The more they tried to bind, the more the book would wear because of the material. The act itself became a symbolic gesture to mourning.
