Taihu Mirror
A Taihu stone built from bamboo, paper, gauze and mirror.
Taihu Mirror is an installation I made in Hangzhou in 2024. I designed a polygonal Taihu stone built from bamboo strips, with mirror, tracing paper and organza fitted to some of its faces. The floor beneath it is covered entirely in mirror. Standing in front of it, you see a stone, and you see yourself broken into many faces.
Design
The installation stands 2 metres high on a footprint of 2 by 1.5 metres. The frame is made of bamboo strips sprayed black and white, built up into a faceted stone. Some faces hold mirror panels, some are covered in tracing paper and organza, and some are left open. The main body hangs from above, and part of it comes to rest on the ground, like fragments fallen from a mountain. The floor is laid entirely with mirror, so the stone, the person and the light all appear a second time underfoot.
Inspiration
I have always felt that cells and nebulae grow in the same shape. Both build themselves out of facets, as if the smallest life and the largest universe follow a single order. A Taihu stone grows the same way, shaped slowly by water and time. Classical connoisseurs judged these stones as thin, wrinkled, perforated and transparent, and what they prized most was the emptiness. I filled that emptiness with mirrors. Standing before the stone, you no longer see a single rock; you see yourself, broken into many faces. Tomás Saraceno builds floating worlds from the lightest materials he can find, and the heaviest things can be made in the lightest way. So I built a mountain from bamboo, paper, gauze and mirror. Light passes through the openings, is cut apart by the mirrors, and is returned to everything around it. In the end, person and stone, inside and outside, solid and void, no longer seem so separate.
