Presents: Installation and Curation: Visual Artistry

Join us for a conversation with artist Flora Kao about her new solo art installation BEYOND, exploring the beauty of Taiwanese lotus offerings.

In her solo show Beyond, artist Flora Kao explores the mesmerizing beauty of Taiwanese lotus offerings. In Taiwan’s Buddhist tradition, grieving family members fold 108 origami lotus each week for seven weeks. Each week, 108 handmade blossoms are ceremonially burned until the lotus covered-body is cremated on the forty-ninth day. The ritual burning of origami lotus serves as a portal for the dead to the afterlife and for the mourning to solace. Documenting her grandparents’ funeral rituals, Kao’s photographic series Portal present powerful close-ups of lotus offerings consumed by flames. Kao’s installation Beyond features hundreds of handmade paper lotus suspended in calligraphic cloud of sacred yellow, the Buddhist color of enlightenment and freedom. The loss of a loved one shatters life as we know it. Kao’s art asks how do we heal after catastrophic loss? How do we gather hope beyond the abyss of heartbreak and grief? The folding of origami lotus is an act of mourning, of seeking solace in meditative task, and healing in the slow act of making and creating beauty. The fragile paper bloom becomes a symbol of hope and rebirth in the face of loss.