I created this artist’s book titled The Ties of the Fallen Stars to explore invisible bonds between people, or it is also a home that keeps all my ties. I got the inspiration from the traditional Chinese myth of Three Lives Stone. It is said to be a stone that allows the dead to see their past lives, present lives, and future lives. This artist’s book is in the shape of a traditional Anhui-style building from southern China. The structures of the Chinese domestic house “step mountain walls” and “four waters return to the hall” represent the expectations of countless generations for a home: to shelter me within high walls, to collect memories from all directions in the hall in front of the courtyard, and to keep my most cherished possessions in the tile-covered chamber. In this artist’s book, I placed the Three Lives Stone, wrapped in a red thread, in a box shaped like a room with a corridor and front hall for collecting memories in front of it.
