芥籽世界  Mountains In Mustard Seeds (2024)


 Mountains In Mustard Seeds is a project born in the New Genres residency space granted by UCLA Department of Art. The project takes forms in a reasearch component excavating the historical palimpsests that created the invasive ecology of the black mustard (Brassica nigra), and a two-channel video projection on large levitating photographs with sound.  

Channel  1, Ashes:
A space where multiple entities convene to collectively grieve and heal—ancestors who are re-enlivened and summoned through oral storytelling, the living gathered at dinner time, and elements of folk music and ambient sounds that mediate transitionings in this ephemeral moment of convening. This video uses images of the rapeseed bloom (Brassica napus) in its native ecology in Southern China.

Channel 2, Seeds:
In a terracotta vessel, a book enclosed in a coat of mustard seed and fiber paper lay burning on a ring of braided grasses and ashes. An activation of non-human agents, embodying the inflammation in our expanded corporealities, transition through histories unspoken.

Contending Parables: Mountains In Mustard Seeds (no. 1),  Inkjet print, 64” x 34”, 2024.
Installation in the Little Gallery, 2024.
Contending Parables: Mountains In Mustard Seeds (no. 2),  Inkjet print, 64” x 34”, 2024.

Video stills








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©  2025 Grace Xu