In February of 2007 I was asked to create a site specific installation, and I decided to challenge the space of the Liao Collection in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The old building was once a printing factory with a high ceiling and huge windows. The antique wall had hundreds of layers of ink peelings, and many of the aged stones were serenely sitting on the floor. The space was quiet in elegance.

I covered the Liao’s stone collection with Japanese Washi paper, and gently rubbed each surface of stone with handmade charcoal. The space now has a sense of unity, as if to be covered by snowflakes, except for a clear resin sculpture (approx. 14” cube) on a prominently higher pedestal in the stone garden. I named this installation: Earthlings – Countries in Stone Garden. 

The tiny rubbings were placed at the holes on the wall because I imagined the planets in the universe when I first saw them – or they reminded me of the first images of the countries of the Earth, as seen from satellites. Each country has a different setting, a different culture and different people, though it could all look the same. Plastic is usually thought of as a cheap and disposable product in our modern everyday life, but I tried to use this synthetic material in a different way – like the monolith floating in space from 2001: A Space Odyssey.”