Plane Tree Mantra

2014
Ink on plane tree
Dimensions variable
FIAC at Jardin des Plantes
National Museum of Natural History, Paris, France
Presented by Mor Charpentier
Photo courtesy of National Museum of Natural History, Paris, Bruno Jay, Frédéric Dubos, Marc Domage, Mor Charpentier, Takeshi Sugiura, and Olivia de Smedt
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As an in-situ intervention, Charwei Tsai inscribed the Heart Sutra, a Buddhist text, on the trunk of the iconic Oriental Plane Tree, which was planted in 1785 by the acclaimed botanist Buffon at the Jardin des Plantes. Heart Sutra is a text that the artist has learned by memory during her childhood in Taiwan, it is also a pillar of Buddhist wisdom, evoking the evanescence of all things. Tsai has written the characters in Chinese calligraphy on the trunk of tree. The public is invited to attend the writing process and to observe the gesture and calligraphy, which symbolizes the meeting between the memory of a person, a thousand year-old tradition, and a historical tree, more than two centuries old. (Text by National Museum of Natural History, Paris, France)