Transporting QI

– Cecilia Ho 2011-2012

Yùn Qì (运气) — the movement of vital breath, the arrival of Good Fortune. This project is both.

I travelled 3,000 kilometres across a changing China: from UNESCO Macau, through financial Hong Kong, industrial Zhanjiang, revolutionary Baise, the rapeseed fields of Luoping — each place a different face, a different story.

I stopped for strangers. Bankers, factory workers, farmers, migrants. I handed them red balloons and asked them to donate their qi for goodwill. One by one, they blew their breath inside. Each balloon held a stranger’s luck, invisible but real. They became part of the art.

I carried their breath to Yuanyang, where villagers received them and then released the balloons into the drought-stricken sky — symbolising the arrival of good fortune to the land.

Qi or vital energy must flow to sustain.

Exhibited at dOCUMENTA (13) Collateral program, The Macau Museum of Art 2012 and at FotoFreo 2012.