Human Paradise · Renunciation Mind
In the mountain courtyard I built two bridges
one for going home
one for leaving home
My old father, three geese, a cat and a dog live at home
The birds of the village come and go
My small room in the city also has a mountain. I picked it up by the roadside.
Sleeping I twisted my back; drinking water I lost a tooth
In a dream I saw mother. Smiling, she said: the one who died is not me, it is your father
I know I am very greedy. I cannot bear to give up sleepwalking, cannot bear to give up waking
I cannot bear to give up the pu'er tea fragrance filling the whole room, even less the cafés inside and outside the city.
I take up the brush and find that everything that should be painted has been painted; I take up the map and say... oh, Africa is still waiting for me.
A hesitant gaze cannot reach a higher dimension
In the mountain courtyard I built two bridges
one to go home
one to leave home
Human Paradise · Krabi
The artist came to Krabi at his son's invitation. Krabi is a southern Thai island, a world-famous rock climbing destination. Throughout the year, climbers from all over the world gather here, most of them young people from Europe and America.
By happy coincidence, the artist had brought no painting tools or paper. He scavenged discarded Thai packaging cardboard from the hotel restaurant rubbish pile every day, and from this began a month-long record of the beach.
Human Paradise · Guirensi Temple
《Guirensi Temple》 is an in-situ creation project carried out by the artist Mu Yuming at Guirensi Temple in Taining, Fujian, from 28 November to 28 December 2025. A small village shrine hidden in a mountain hollow, kept day-to-day by a local villager (the "temple keeper"), the place presents an ecology distinct from institutional monasteries: the villagers treat the temple as their own courtyard, sweeping at dawn, offering incense, tidying the altar, footsteps merging softly with the morning mist rolling through the hills.
The artist remained there for a full month, holding "my life is my art" as the core principle and fusing daily practice with artistic creation.
Human Paradise · Lijiang
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.
Human Paradise · Hua Niao Dao
《Hua Niao Dao》 is an island residency carried out by Mu Yuming from 17 September to 17 October 2025 on Huaniao Island, Shengsi, Zhejiang. Arriving on the island twelve days after the death of his father on 5 September 2025. From the funeral to the sea wind.
A friend dreamed of the artist's parents walking hand in hand; his father said: “Our child can stand on his own now.” Finally, graduation.
Human Paradise · Shambhala
In the mountains of northern Thailand, there is an annual Shambhala music festival. At this time, hippies, spiritual practitioners, wandering artists, digital nomads, all manner of extraordinary people from all over the world converge here, singing and dancing for more than ten days.
The artist participated throughout. Each day he moved through the crowd, conversing with strangers, drinking together, improvising dance. On-site he sketched with charcoal and mineral pigments, interacting with the scene through short videos, recording this gathering.
Human Paradise · Zongtong Temple
From 4 December 2025 to 10 January 2026, the artist Lao Mu undertook a forty-one-day intensive Vipassanā retreat at Wat Jong Thong (宗通寺) in Chiang Mai, Thailand. Throughout the retreat, painting served as an action-record, leaving traces of movement on a 35 cm × 50 m raw xuan paper scroll.
《Zongtong Temple》 is the extreme meeting of conceptual performance and the ink tradition. Between observer and observed exists an angle: that is the 'who am I?' The forty-one days were not a search for an answer, but time's material sedimentation: letting the question surface on its own.
Human Paradise · Kunming
March 15 to mid-April 2026. This series was created by the artist upon returning to Kunming after a self-healing journey through Laos and Thailand, resonating with other scrolls of Paradise on Earth made during his travels.
The loss of his parents was still fresh, the grief raw; simultaneously, crises in the external world were unfolding in succession, from the lingering trauma of the pandemic to continuous conflicts between the US and Iran, the flames of Gaza, and the Russia–Ukraine war. Humanity's fate hangs in the balance.
Human Paradise · Chiang Dao
In January 2026, after the forty-one-day intensive Vipassanā retreat at Wat Jong Thong (Zongtong Temple) in Chiang Mai, the artist Lao Mu mounted a motorcycle with all his creative equipment and rode into the Qing Dao mountains of northern Thailand, opening a season of mobile-studio practice.
From the strict discipline of the retreat to the natural ease of the open mountain, this transition forms both a natural extension of the Zongtong Temple project and an important prelude to the Paradise on Earth series. The motorcycle is the horse; the scroll is the pack. The ancients rode to wander; today one rides to create.