Sunbathing

"Sending the Elder" — not a farewell, but a sending-home.

The Naxi language refers to an elder's death as "song lao" ("sending the elder") or "guo bei" ("passing a generation") — never "si" (death).

"Sending" is an active act — the shared responsibility of family, clan, and even the whole village. The elder does not leave alone; they are collectively escorted back to the land of the ancestors.

The farewell to my father was cruel and beautiful — unlike the farewell to my mother.

For six months, the artist stopped all creative work and devoted himself entirely to caring for his dying father. At the same time, he recorded daily life in charcoal: the state of his father regressing to a three-year-old child — the details of feeding, changing diapers, assisting with bodily functions — alongside the process of building a kitchen, a bedroom, and a garden for his father with his own hands.

This is a record that cannot be called a "work." It is the most honest emotional archive.