Taixu

Taixu (太虛) is a visual meditation on emptiness as connection rather than absence. Drawing from the Heart Sutra, the work explores the body and natural world as intertwined, cosmic thresholds, where light, matter, memory, and breath converge.

In Taixu (太虛), meaning 'cosmos' or 'great emptiness' in Chinese, Alvin Ng examines the intricate web of connections that link humanity to everything around us; from the iron in our blood, forged in the hearts of dying stars, to the air we breathe, shared with plants, animals, and fellow humans. Our bodies become cosmic artifacts, composed of the same elements that shape the Earth and Sky, reflecting a unity that transcends individuality.

The work moves beyond mere observation; it unfolds as a meditation on the essence of being. By expanding the scope of interconnectedness to encompass both the physical and the metaphysical, Taixu reveals that in our connectedness, we are everything, and in being everything, we touch the profound state of zero, or zero-ness.

Through visual narratives, Alvin invites viewers to reflect on their place within this infinite network of relationships, where every form is a manifestation of emptiness and every emptiness is pregnant with form. In this realisation, the distinctions between self and other, between one and many, dissolve, leaving only the profound understanding that we are the universe experiencing itself.


“Once Zhuang Zhou dreamed he was a butterfly, fluttering freely, unaware he was Zhuang Zhou. When he awoke, he did not know whether he was Zhuang Zhou who had dreamed he was a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming it was Zhuang Zhou.”

- Zhuangzi, The Butterfly Dream, Chapter 2: Qi Wu Lun (The Equality of Things, 4th century BCE)