Death Has Been My Dream for a Long Time
Li Yongzheng
李勇政
Production date
2015
Object Detail
Media
video (colour, sound), Himalayan salt bricks
Measurements
video 16 min 51 sec
salt bricks, installed 10 x 1100 x 100 cm
salt bricks, installed 10 x 1100 x 100 cm
Notes
In 2009 Li Yongzheng bought 5 tons of salt and constructed an installation that referenced a sacred Tibetan mountain that was seen as the centre of the universe and the link between heaven and earth. Ganrenboqi's summit had never been climbed, and it had been a place of Hindu and Buddhist pilgrimage for centuries. This was the first of his many works using salt, an ancient symbol of life, death, regeneration, reincarnation and preservation. One of these works, 'Death Has Been My Dream for a Long Time', emerged from an event that took place on 9 June, 2015, in Bijie, Guizhou, in Qixingguan district's Cizhu Village, where four children were found dead in their home. They had been left alone when their parents went to the city to find work. Numbered among the more than 65 million 'left behind children' in rural China, silent victims of globalisation, in despair they had swallowed agricultural pesticide. The eldest boy (only 13 years old) left a note that said,' Thank you for your good will. I know you meant well by me, but I have to go...Death has been my dream for a long time. Today is a new beginning.' Li Yongzheng said, 'This kind of terrible thing left me unable to hide my emotions, and I had to make an artwork about it.' Bricks of white Himalayan salt are arranged on the ground to spell out in Chinese 死亡，我多年的梦想 ('Death has been my dream for many years'). The video documents a performance in which Li arranged 2000 natural Himalayan salt bricks spelling out the same sentence along a beach in Tanggu, near Tianjin. The incoming tide dissolved the bricks, thus the salt returns to the sea, and the cycle begins anew.
Accession number
2018.113