Description
Historically, China has been a highly centralized place, with power often concentrated in a single ruler. This centralization appears not only in political structures but also in the accumulation of materials archives. The forbidden city was once the epicenter of this centralized power, where artifacts, documents, and treasures were carefully aggregated and preserved. This book by Lai Ping So and Wai Lun Hsu re-examines the centralized structure by revisiting these artifacts in a contemporary context. In this work, the artists curated historical, archival, and contemporary fragments, images from visits to the three Palace Museums (Taipei, Beijing, Hong Kong) and archival material from the National Palace Museum in Taipei. The three museums are connected through a shared archive originally from the Forbidden City’s imperial collection. The books’ non-linear structure explores centralized hierarchies in East Asian history and its ties to traditional Chinese philosophy and aesthetics.
