PRESENCE OF ABSENCE

ENG

This series of works is created using dandelion seeds and plant fibers.

I have embedded the original force of life within the paper pulp, transforming the support itself into a “plantable” body—a site of latency and germinative potential. On these sheets, I intervene by embroidering words with cotton thread dyed with plant pigments.

The embroidered texts are derived from various terms for the “invisible” across multiple languages. The path of the needle and thread—their emerging, sinking, and weaving through the fibers—mimics the movement between plant and earth. In this sense, embroidery is no longer a surface script but becomes a structural action that intervenes in the life cycle.

The existence of this work is not oriented toward permanent preservation. On the contrary, it fulfills itself through its own disappearance: under the influence of soil, water, and light, the paper and words disintegrate, transforming into a living, growing dandelion.

The dissolution of the material form is not an end but the point of activation.

The completion of the work requires the sower to sign an irreversible agreement, attesting to their active acceptance of its disappearance.

The eternity of the work does not reside in possession of its physicality but rather in the cycle that begins after its dissolution. When the dandelion reaches maturity, the seeds are dispersed by the wind, take root in different territories, and generate new temporal and spatial trajectories.

In this way, the series evades the logic of ownership and is entrusted to an irreversible natural process—a transformation from name to life, from the finite to the immeasurable.

ENG

Each work in this series is accompanied by a “Protocol of Execution”. To be recognized as the (executor), the collector must sign this agreement, renouncing possession of the material form and embracing its inevitable disappearance. The work exists as art only upon the act of “planting”; without activation, it remains mere matter, not a work of art.

Copyright © Gao Lan 2025/2026 - design by cris.digital.fox

Copyright © Gao Lan 2025/2026 - design by cris.digital.fox